


Catch Me (If You Can, That Is)

by garbageOwO



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band)
Genre: (actually everyone is a dumbass), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I mean it's not really slow burn but more like, Light Angst, Lots and lots of Awkwardness, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, Violent Fluctuations Between Embers and Raging Infernos Until They Get Together, a few inside jokes here and there, byeongkwan is a thot, cheerleader bk, choir kid + school newspaper photographer + basketball team member donghun, donghun is 2 seconds away from finding new friends, emo art kid yoon, ensemble will be beat interactive staff members and random kpop idols, junhee is Trying His Best, read if you have a terrible sense of humor, sehyoon is whipped and also a dumbass, soccer team member + yearbook committee member chan, sorry choice, student council vp + soccer captain + theatre kid junhee, this is gonna be 17 ish chapters, yuchan is a ray of sunshine pls protect him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2021-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:13:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 71,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22177603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/garbageOwO/pseuds/garbageOwO
Summary: Sehyoon can’t be friends with Byeongkwan. Ever. Because he’s got this stupid,stupidcrush on him, and if they become friends, he’s going to do what he does best and mess everything up. That’s why he decides to avoid him for the four years they’re stuck together. And the results of his decision are going pretty well, actually, until fate screws him over.(Alternatively: Byeongkwan Kim is handsy and pretty and Extra and Sehyoon has to learn how to deal with that.)
Relationships: Kim Byeongkwan/Kim Sehyoon | Wow, Lee Donghun/Park Junhee | Jun
Comments: 121
Kudos: 273





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> updates every 2-3 weeks!
> 
> also, if you're maddy, AI, laurel, ash, barry b benson, tee, bobo, or len, I am deeply sorry for whatever you might read
> 
> also @ kakaotalk squad, writing coven, it's corona time gc, asian invasion gang, and everyone who's dealt with me screaming at 2 am over my writing: ilyyyyyy <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't done creative writing in 2 years, this should be fun, lmao (before we begin I just wanna let y'all know that I'll be using the western name format, since this takes place in a random American high school)

_Three Years Earlier_

“Come on, print, just _print_ _already_ ,” Sehyoon mutters, almost ready to tear his hair out.

The printer makes a sound resembling that of a small nuclear explosion in reply and displays a pixelated message: _DOCUMENT ACCEPTED._

“ _Finally.”_

A small light on the printer—an absolute dinosaur of a machine, really, it can’t be less than eight years old—begins flashing red, accompanied by several more whirring noises and a new message: _NO INK._

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” he groans.

It’s fine, it’s okay, he can just text Junhee, and everything’s gonna work out.

Except Junhee’s already on the bus.

Okay, scratch that. Maybe Donghun can help him out.

Except Donghun lives next door to Junhee and he’s probably on the bus too.

Alright, shit, he’s running out of options. Maybe he can ask… no… what about… definitely not. He starts to mentally curse his pathetic social life. 

“Sehyoon! Sehyoon, you’re going to be late! The bus is almost here!” Mrs. Kim shouts from the bottom of the staircase. 

Man, _fuck_ the goddamn bus.

He grabs his backpack and rushes down the stairs, almost crashing into Eunsuh (“Hey, watch it! We still have a few minutes!”) and nearly tripping over his cat.

“You have to stop sleeping on the first step, Carrot.” He pauses to scratch her chin before yanking his jacket off of the banister and rushing out the door.

“Good luck!” Mrs. Kim calls out as he speed walks (it’s the fastest he can go with a backpack full of folders and textbooks) toward the bus stop.

If he’s lucky, the bus will get there early and he can _maybe_ print out his essay before first period. The school’s about ten minutes away from his house, and best case scenario, he— _wait._ Where did he—

“Forgetting something, _Wow_?” Eunsuh grins as she hops off of the porch, waving his phone in the air.

Sehyoon mutters some choice words under his breath and turns back. “I thought we agreed that we’re never using that name again.”

“Sure thing, Wow.”

“I was _seven_.” He tries to snatch his phone away from her.

“Okay, I’ll stop calling you that for a whole month if—”

“If?”

“ _If_ you promise me something.”

“I’m not doing your homework for you.” Sehyoon rolls his eyes.

“I wasn’t gonna say that,” Eunsuh huffs. “Look, just promise me you won’t be a complete loser this year, alright? Make some friends. Talk to people. Do—I don’t know, do whatever stupid high school boys do.”

“I already have friends!” 

“Really? Who?”

“I’ve got Junhee. And Donghun.” He attempts to take his phone again, but she jumps away.

“ _And?”_

“ _And_ ”—he finally succeeds in prying his phone from her hand—“right now, you’re preventing me from making friends and talking to people and doing whatever stupid high school boys do. _Bye_.”

Eunsuh wrinkles her nose, whirls around, and strolls to the middle school bus stop at the other end of the sidewalk.

Sehyoon brushes cat hair off his jacket (dammit, Carrot) and resumes his route to his bus stop. Nobody else is there, as usual. He’s glad he isn’t neighbors with his classmates, but it kind of sucks when your best friends can hang out whenever they want while you’re stuck having to ask your parents to drive you over.

Two more minutes. He kicks a rock around while checking his messages until he accidentally sends it across the street. God, can’t the bus driver just—

_Bzzz. Bzzzz._

“What do you want, Eunsuh?”

“Hi! Ummm, I hope this isn’t too weird...”

That _definitely_ isn’t Eunsuh. He squints at the other end of the sidewalk. There’s a guy with a pink beanie(?) standing next to his sister.

“ _Who the hell are you?_ ” 

“I, uh, I’m a freshman, like you, apparently, and I’m borrowing your sister, um, Eun…? Eunsuh’s phone, because I’m probably gonna be late so can you tell the bus driver to wait for me? Please?”

The guy with the pink beanie starts waving, and Sehyoon slowly waves back.

Sehyoon isn’t too good at profiling people from their voices, but he’s absolutely sure this guy uses an emoticon in every other text. “...Sure?” 

“I have to go in and print my essay real quick, thanks so much, I’m—”

“Wait, you’re printing out your essay?”

“Yeah, I know, it’s a little last minute.”

What are the odds? “Can you print out mine, too? I can email it to you.”

“Uh, okay. My email’s j.ace.son at gmail dot com. It’s j-period-a-c-e-period-s-o-n. Don’t ask.”

It dawns upon Sehyoon that this guy—Jason—is going to see his email address. His astronomically stupid email address that he came up with at two in the morning and Donghun and Junhee are _still_ making fun of him for.

“It’s fine,” Sehyoon says. “Give me a second… alright, I sent it. Thanks, I guess?”

“No problem, I’ll give it to you on the bus!”

Jason hangs up and runs back into his house.

A minute later, the bus pulls up to the curb. Sehyoon looks back, half-expecting to see the pink-beanie-guy sprinting toward him, but Eunsuh’s the only other person outside.

“Hey, there’s another student who’s gonna be here soon. Can you give him a minute?” Sehyoon asks.

“I’ll be nice since it’s the first day, but from tomorrow onwards that’s _his_ problem, got it?” the bus driver grumbles.

Sehyoon nods and heads to the back of the bus.

Sure enough, Donghun and Junhee are there, but they’re too busy talking to some ginger kid he’s never seen before to notice him. It’s understandable; Sehyoon’s not really one to announce his presence, and you can’t really tell it’s him unless you look him in the face. He plops onto the seat in front of his friends and looks outside. Still no Jason, still no essay.

“Is our coach _trying_ to kill us?” the ginger kid groans, kicking up his legs and resting them on Junhee’s lap across the aisle. “We haven’t even had any games yet and my legs feel like jelly. Or yogurt. I’m kinda craving yogurt. And maybe a tangerine. Hold on, I think I have one.”

He rummages through his backpack and pulls out a tangerine from underneath a bunch of folders.

“Do you have a lifetime supply of those?” Donghun snorts.

“No, but I wish I did. Damn, middle school soccer was so easy. I just had to kick a ball around for an hour and a half and then I could go to Byeongkwan’s house and play League. He switched neighborhoods over the summer, though. I think he lives here now, actually, but I don’t know where he is.”

Sehyoon’s about to chime in when he catches a glimpse of pink in the distance—a glimpse of pink moving at breakneck speed. It looks like he’s got a matching sweatshirt with his beanie. There are a few sheets of paper in his hand and Sehyoon’s praying, for the sake of his English grade, that he doesn’t trip and fall. He jumps to a stop—Sehyoon can almost imagine screeching tire noises—and darts up the bus steps, the door shutting behind him.

He weakly apologizes and shuffles down the aisle. 

Sehyoon tries to move his backpack out of the way when the bus jolts forward and Jason (Byeongkwan?) falls onto his lap, grabbing onto one of his shoulders to steady himself.

Sehyoon looks up and the first thing he sees is _blue._

He doesn’t know if he’s wearing contact lenses or not, but it doesn’t matter; all he knows is that he has a new favorite shade of blue. He’s completely fixated on his wide, blue eyes until he removes his hand from his shoulder and runs it through his bubblegum-pink tresses, making Sehyoon realize that he isn’t actually wearing a hat of any sort; that’s his _hair_. Sehyoon starts thinking about how he really wants to ruffle his hair before he mentally kicks himself because _don’t be weird, Sehyoon, you haven’t even said anything to each other yet._ Jason/Byeongkwan licks his lips and it takes all the willpower Sehyoon can muster to not have a complete breakdown.

His mouth.

 _Holy shit,_ his _mouth_.

The only word Sehyoon’s malfunctioning brain can produce is _pretty_. It’s super unrealistic, he knows that, but Sehyoon desperately, _desperately_ wishes this boy would lean in and let him know exactly how pretty his mouth is.

He frantically looks for something, _anything_ to look at that isn’t his face so that he can possibly get his mind to produce coherent thoughts again. Unfortunately, however, his gaze lands on Jason/Byeongkwan’s legs.

Which only makes matters a million times worse.

They’re nice. Like, _really_ nice. Sehyoon wonders what kind of athletic hell he goes through because not even the guys on the varsity soccer team have _those._ And it doesn’t help that he’s wearing shorts that are about two inches too short for him to think straight. His mouth suddenly becomes uncomfortably wet. 

Sehyoon realizes that the boy on his lap is the prettiest boy he’s ever seen. It’s _unfair_ , really, the way there are some people who look like _that_ and can make people _feel things_ without even trying.

He also realizes that the boy on his lap is exactly that—a boy. A male person. And Sehyoon Kim is _heterosexual_ , thank you very much.

“Uh, hi,” he says. “I just moved here a few weeks ago. You’re Eunsuh’s brother, right? I’m Byeongkwan.”

“I’m straight.”

 _Shit shit shit shit shit,_ he did _not_ just introduce himself as straight, there’s _no way_ he did that, that’s not what straight people _do—_

“Hm?”

“Yeah, I’m… umm… I’m Skate… Skater King Wow,” Sehyoon chokes out. Fuck, that was close.

“Skater King Wow, Thicc Boi?” Byeongkwan smiles.

Sehyoon shrinks into his jacket. “Yeah, that’s me.”

_(Sehyoon’s thumb hovers over the “send” button. He’s got one (1) neighbor his age. A neighbor he could possibly befriend. Is he really going to let his first impression of him be that his email is sk8terkingw0w.thiccboi@gmail.com? Is he really going to do that? Is he really going to sacrifice whatever dignity he has, just like that?_

_You know what? It’s fine. It’s not like he’s ever going to want to talk to this guy again. He hits “send.”)_

“I should probably get off of your lap now.” He scoots onto the seat and laughs.

Sehyoon wants to strangle the part of himself that wishes he stayed there a little longer.

“So, you’re a _thicc boi_ , huh?” Byeongkwan wiggles his eyebrows and stares directly at Sehyoon’s crotch, adding onto the list of reasons why he currently wants to die.

The list looks a lot like this:

_Why Sehyoon Kim Wants to Die (In No Particular Order)_

  1. It’s not even eight in the morning. It’s too early for this. It’s too early for any of this.
  2. His English essay is complete bullcrap.
  3. He’s covered in cat hair.
  4. He has a grand total of two friends, neither of which seem to be even vaguely aware of his presence.
  5. He’s perhaps a tad less heterosexual than he was fifteen minutes ago.
  6. He had the chance to be friends with someone who lives in his neighborhood and he completely messed it up.
  7. An insanely pretty boy’s first impression of him is his unfathomably shitty email address.
  8. He’s being way too emotional about said pretty boy’s legs.
  9. Said pretty boy is also scrutinizing his dick.



Sehyoon never thought he could feel so _exposed_ , even in an oversized jacket and with his bangs in his eyes.

And he’s mad because he doesn't really mind having a practical stranger insinuate that he’s hung.

A very attractive practical stranger, at least.

“That’s not—I didn’t—that’s not what that’s supposed to mean,” Sehyoon stutters.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night, Sehyoon Kim.” Byeongkwan hands him his essay and turns to join the others’ conversation.

Sehyoon immediately regrets putting his name at the top of his essay because (for the sake of his mental state) he would much rather _not_ have Byeongkwan say his full name while smirking. No sir, that image will certainly not help him sleep at night. Maybe there was something in the Cheerios™ he had for breakfast. Yeah, that has to be it. The milk probably expired, and that’s why he can’t think logically anymore. Can expired milk turn you into a gay dumpster fire? He tries to ignore all the clumsy backflips in his mental gymnastics.

Soon they arrive at their school and his friends finally notice him as the bus pulls away. 

“You were on the bus? Why didn't you say hi?” Junhee pouts.

Sehyoon sighs. Another lecture on being antisocial coming in three, two—

“You should care more about talking to people! You can't just go through life waiting for people to notice you. You’ll end up sad and lonely and you’re already emo enough as it is. I can’t—hey, where’d he go?”

Sehyoon doesn’t really like ditching people, but his locker and his classroom for homeroom are at the opposite ends of the school, and he can’t be late on the first day.

Let’s see, 159, 161, 163, 165… 166. Just when he thinks his day can’t get any worse, he finds out he’s stuck with a bottom locker. He crouches down and unzips his backpack when someone trips over him and drops their books.

“Ah, _fuck_ ,” a familiar voice says in a way that doesn’t sound entirely PG-13. Sehyoon is annoyed by how much he wants him to repeat that phrase over and over again. 

He turns around and sure enough, there’s Byeongkwan, scrambling to get his things back into his backpack. Sehyoon picks up one of his notebooks to which a piece of paper is taped. It’s his schedule, and printed at the very top is _Byeongkwan Kim, Locker 165._

Shit _._

He can’t be Byeongkwan Choi or Byeongkwan Park or Byeongkwan Seo, no, he just _has_ to be Byeongkwan _Kim._

Sehyoon wants to personally defenestrate whoever decided their high school’s lockers should be organized by alphabetical order.

He inspects Byeongkwan’s schedule. A lot of it looks familiar. _Very_ familiar. He pulls out his own from his backpack.

Byeongkwan looks over. “Hey, I think we have most of our classes together! And our lockers are right next to each other, too!”

_Why Sehyoon Kim Wants to Die (In No Particular Order)_

10\. He’s going to spend the majority of his first year of high school in close proximity to an insanely pretty boy.

Byeongkwan unceremoniously shoves the rest of his belongings into his backpack, brushes himself off, and stands up.

“By the way, I can take the bottom locker if you want,” he offers, reaching out a hand toward Sehyoon.

Sehyoon takes it and his mind instantly becomes as fried as the Oreos® he probably shouldn’t have eaten last night. Stupid hormones.

“Um, sure. Thanks for letting me be your top.”

Byeongkwan simply stares at him. He opens his mouth to reply but nothing comes out.

It takes five seconds for Sehyoon’s singular brain cell to activate and make him register what he said. His eyes widen with horror. 

“I mean, um, thanks for letting me be on top. Shit, no, uh, thanks for being the bottom,” he sputters.

He’s about three seconds away from curling up in the fetal position and screaming. If he eats lunch quickly enough, maybe he’ll have time to find an empty classroom and have a mental breakdown. That sounds like a good plan.

“Fuck, wait, thanks… thanks for taking the bottom locker and letting me have the top locker. Yeah. Um. That’s what I meant. Sorry.” He fidgets with his hands as he awaits a response.

Byeongkwan picks up his backpack and for a second, Sehyoon thinks that he’s going to do what any rational person would do in that situation—run straight to the principal’s office and request a new locker and a new schedule. Or maybe request to be transferred to a new school entirely.

Instead, he starts giggling, and Sehyoon fights the urge to bang his head against his locker. Repeatedly.

“Well, it looks like I’ll be seeing you a lot this year.” He has the audacity to _wink_ , and Sehyoon weighs the pros and cons of dropping out of high school. He makes a mental note to study up on real estate in Siberia.

He decides that all the items on the list can actually be condensed into one.

_Why Sehyoon Kim Wants to Die (In No Particular Order)_

  1. Byeongkwan Kim.



  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave reviews choice <3 (also shout out to the kakaotalk gang) (official first chapter won't be out for a while probably) (I mean I'm done writing it, I just don't want to have a super inconsistent update schedule)


	2. It's Not What You Think

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let’s go choice, first chapter 
> 
> tw // homophobia mention (?) nothing direct
> 
> also here’s some stuff I forgot to mention—hair colors have no real pattern, I’m not actively trying to write certain eras into this, though I will reference ~looks.~ I like to imagine that BK is constantly jumping between eras in terms of appearance while Yoon’s stuck at predebut for the first half of this fic lol
> 
> also!!!!!!!! since ao3 doesn't have covers I'm just going to put the below image at the start of every chapter, I tried to channel my inner manhwa artist when I drew it

_Present Day_

**oceanhee**

**Today** 3:39 PM

_Heyyyy can you do me a hug favor_

_*huge_

_Autocorrect is broken_

_So I have to leave practice early today bc of a doctor’s appointment_

_And I left my backpack in the locker room_

_It’s in row c on the left_

_Can you pleeeaaaase get it and give it to me outside of the entrance_

_The one by the locker room_

_I’ll be there at 5_

_Thanks_

Sehyoon groans and stuffs his phone into his back pocket. Normally he wouldn’t mind something like this, but today’s been objectively terrible, to say the least. He didn’t know Thursdays could be this shitty. There was the excruciating calculus test (which he didn’t remotely ace, despite Junhee’s reassurement), then the awful debate about _Titus Andronicus_ (he doesn’t hate the book; it’s just that he turns into Lavinia whenever he’s prompted to speak), then the incredibly suspicious “casseroles” the cafeteria served for lunch (there’s a rumor that nobody knows what the ingredients are, not even the cafeteria staff), then the pop quiz in French (brûle en l’enfer, Monsieur Dupont), and then the stupid group project for history (he had to continue working on it after school, which is why he’s still here at 4:37). And now he has to go all the way to the other side of the school because Junhee forgot his backpack. Sehyoon may be a bastard, but he’s a bastard who’s there for his friends. (It’s not saying much, though, since he only has two to be there for.)

He crams his textbooks into his locker—165, right above Byeongkwan Kim’s, 166, which is how it’s been for the past three years. He reaches for the spot where his sketchbook is. Or rather, where it should be.

Fuck.

He shuts his locker and starts heading towards the art classroom; he must’ve left it there second period. Again. Honestly, you think he’d be a little less careless, given its contents. It’s not that he’s insecure about his artistic abilities, and it’s not like he draws nudes or other questionable crap, either. No, the reason why he has a near heart attack every time someone asks to see his sketchbook is Byeongkwan Kim. He’s got a plethora of sticky notes with quick studies and half-finished sketches on graph paper and even a fully-shaded portrait in there. Sehyoon’s drawn Donghun and Junhee a few times, too, but with them, it’s different. They know he draws them, and besides, they’re his friends. On the other side, he barely knows Byeongkwan. And Sehyoon doesn't want to be known as the guy who puts a suspicious amount of detail into drawings of people he barely knows.

It’s a bad habit. Every day during class, while their teacher drones on and on about difference quotients and the like, Sehyoon ends up doodling him. It’s gotten to the point where he doesn't even think about it anymore; all he has to do is look at Byeongkwan, and his hand automatically fills in the spaces between his notes. He knows that he should probably stop because as he learned freshman year, he has no luck whatsoever when it comes to anything that has to do with Byeongkwan. But Byeongkwan is… well, he’s Byeongkwan. He’s pretty, he’s cute, and he sits directly across from Sehyoon. And best of all, he’s utterly oblivious; never once has he looked over at Sehyoon’s notes, or even at Sehyoon himself (to both his relief and dejection). It would be a crime _not_ to draw him. 

He only draws him when it’s convenient (i.e. during calculus), though. Anything and everything that concerns Byeongkwan outside of an academic environment is strictly off-limits because Sehyoon refuses to let himself be a dumb pining idiot, _goddammit._

Well, it’s strictly off-limits 99.99% of the time. Once, after class, Sehyoon looked at some of his selfies on Instagram to finish one of his sketches. But it didn’t _really_ count since he was almost done already. While panicking about whether or not he was breaking his #1 rule, he made perhaps one of the worst mistakes he could’ve possibly made. Worse than drawing the wrong hand or messing up the dreaded other eye. No, he followed his reference photo a bit _too_ well. After he was finished, he noticed that he had subconsciously drawn the hearts from that one cheesy filter Byeongkwan always uses.

In pen.

And then he giggled and scribbled their names around the hearts half a million times until there was barely any negative space left.

And he didn’t regret it entirely.

And he still doesn’t.

And he hates that. He hates how he lets himself be giggly and stupid over a guy who never acknowledges his existence (just like the rest of the student population).

Sehyoon finally reaches the art classroom. God, it better be here. He jiggles the door handle. Locked. It’s a good thing Ms. Lia knows how much of a complete dumbass he is. He drops his backpack and rummages through various pens and worksheets before fishing out a spare key. It’s the third time this month he’s had to use it, and it’s not even halfway through October. He fumbles with the lock until the door clicks open and reaches for the light switch.

The art classroom is comforting when it’s empty. There’s no one critiquing or asking to borrow dip pens or washing brushes. Half-finished charcoal drawings are propped up on easels and watercolor paintings lay on drying racks. The only other things in motion are the water drops from the leaky faucet. Although silent, the classroom’s as welcoming as ever. Most would consider a room without people lifeless, but to Sehyoon, the art there radiates more life than any crowd. The unused easels beckon to him, and he has half a mind to pull out a canvas and a gouache palette from the supply closet and get to work. Right now, there’s nobody who can look over his shoulder or question him about the meaning of his art. There’s nobody who can distract him with senseless noise. When he’s here, alone, he can create art that belongs to him and only him.

His phone pings and interrupts his reverie.

**oceanhee**

**Today** 4:41 PM

_Did you see my text??_

_I can get it myself if you can’t_

Half of Sehyoon wants to reply _Okay, I’ll be painting in the art classroom then_ but what he likes to think is his better half types _It’s fine, I’ll be there at 5_. He puts his phone away and starts heading out before he remembers why he’s in the art classroom in the first place.

Well, it’s not on any of the tables. He frantically pulls out all of the chairs. It’s on the last one, black and scuffed with his name hastily scrawled on the spine in silver ink. He lets out a sigh of relief and flips through the pages. Unfortunately, they have a bad habit of falling out; he should really listen to Donghun.

_(“Why don’t you get a new sketchbook?” Donghun asks. “It looks like you crammed a stack of paper into an old binder.”_

_“It’s a perfectly good sketchbook. Nothing’s wrong with it,” Sehyoon argues. A couple of pages take the opportunity to float to the ground._

_“Whatever you say.”)_

Alright, it looks like everything’s there, graph paper sketches and all, but Sehyoon can’t help but feel like he missed something. He goes through each individual drawing. There’s those sticky notes from calculus two weeks ago, and there’s that tiny doodle of Junhee with Bulbasaur’s face, but where’s—

Oh no.

_Oh no._

He flips through his sketchbook for the third time, almost tearing a few pages in the process. _No_. There are the studies, there are the sketches, but where the _hell_ is— _no. No no no._ It has to be here. It has to be here somewhere. He puts down his sketchbook, gets on his knees, and checks under the tables.

_No._

He checks Ms. Lia’s desk.

_No._

He looks at all the chairs again.

_No._

He opens all the paint cabinets, almost tearing the doors from their hinges.

 _No_.

He rummages through the shelves and boxes in the supply closet.

_No._

He scours every nook and cranny of the art classroom.

_No._

It’s gone.

The dumb portrait of Byeongkwan with the hearts and their names.

_It’s gone._

This has to be one of the top ten worst days of his life. All he can do is hope and pray that some janitor threw it into a trash can.

Sehyoon wishes he could throw _himself_ into a trash can.

Best case scenario, it’s sitting in a smelly dumpster (where it belongs); worst case scenario, someone finds it and uses it as blackmail. Or Byeongkwan finds it and files a restraining order. Or he winks at him again.

He glances at the clock; it’s 4:52, and he better start hauling his ass to the locker room because Junhee, being Junhee, is most likely going to show up a few minutes early. He grabs his sketchbook, turns off the lights, and leaves the art classroom.

Footsteps echo through the hallway and his first instinct is to hide in a crevice. It’s an annoying reflex; no one’s tried to mess with him since sophomore year, and he can probably hold up against most of the student body, but he can’t help it. The footsteps are accompanied by loud wheezing—either an asthma attack or laughter, he can't tell. 

He doesn’t know too many asthmatics, but he does know someone who can sound like one. Yuchan Kang and Donghun, the other two contributors for their history project—he says ‘contributors’ because the fourth member is high 85% of the time, and to be honest, Sehyoon doesn’t even know if the guy knows there _is_ a project—come into his line of sight.

He almost says hello before he remembers that he’s never talked to Yuchan in the three years he’s been aware of his existence. Besides, they look happy without him, and he doesn’t want to intrude on that. It’s not that he doesn’t like Yuchan, even if he’s social and energetic and sporty and loud—everything Sehyoon isn’t. He’s dealt with Junhee for over a decade; he could certainly handle Yuchan, if he wanted to. But if he befriended Yuchan, he would be expected to interact with Byeongkwan, and that’s a whole puddle of feelings he doesn't want to step in. In some weird alternate universe, he’s friends with Byeongkwan and Yuchan and they’re a happy gang of five. It’s strange to think about, and maybe it would be that way if Sehyoon didn’t harbor a useless, unrequited crush on Byeongkwan. But reality is reality, and Sehyoon can’t bring himself to be friends with him. He can’t be friends with someone when he knows he’ll inevitably fuck up their friendship. Because if there’s one thing Sehyoon’s good at, it’s fucking up.

Byeongkwan and Yuchan are also much better friends than Sehyoon could ever be. Donghun and Junhee don’t have to force them to talk to people, they go to parties of their own accord, they aren’t burdens. Sure, they’re as disastrous as he is, but they’re fun disasters—disasters you can break rules and feel alive with. Meanwhile, Sehyoon’s the kind of disaster that has people genuinely wondering if he’s an alien or a robot. Or both.

Yuchan and Donghun laugh some more about how the former got a concussion—Sehyoon assumes this is why he isn’t at soccer practice—from 'a super shitty attempt at parkour.’ It’s an interesting story, and Yuchan is quite the storyteller; it’s easy to see why everyone likes him so much. Sehyoon softly laughs to himself as the two of them exit the school.

The path to the locker room is something that can only be described as an abomination created by an architect who must’ve been doing lines of cocaine and downing shots of vodka simultaneously. Never mind tryouts or championships; getting to the locker room is the hardest part of high school sports. He counts two sets of stairs, five right turns, three left turns, and one u-turn (unsurprisingly, he gets lost) before he finds himself facing the door to the boys’ locker room. He can already smell the stale sweat and Old Spice reeking from inside. Oddly enough, though, it sounds like there’s no one in there. Which he’s not complaining about. Okay, get in, get the backpack, get out. He can do this.

Sehyoon pushes the door open and immediately trips on a stray soccer ball. As his knees hit the mud-stained floor—gross, but at least it’s laundry day—he hears something crash into the lockers and someone slams a locker shut. Great, it looks like (or rather, sounds like) there’s another guy in the locker room.

He picks himself up and flicks a clump of grass off his sweatshirt. He half-expects some athlete to brush past him to the exit but the room is… silent? Whoever else is there has to be standing completely still.

“Uh… hello?” Sehyoon says.

No response. No footsteps, no rustling, no other crashes, no nothing. 

He checks the other parts of the locker room.

There’s nobody else. 

Maybe he just imagined it. Huh. Weird.

Whatever, hallucinatory noises are the least of his problems right now.

He walks past Row A and Row B. There’s Junhee’s blue backpack with the gecko keychain he’s had since middle school. Luckily for his back, it looks fairly light.

As he maneuvers his way around sneakers and jackets, one of the lockers on his left sneezes.

“Bless you,” Sehyoon mutters and picks up the backpack.

Wait a second.

He drops the backpack and backtracks.

The locker sneezes again.

“Who… why… _how…?”_ What even… How the _hell_ did someone get inside a locker? A top locker, no less???

“Ah, _fuck,”_ the locker says.

Sehyoon’s face drains. He’d recognize that vaguely sexual ‘ah, _fuck’_ anywhere. 

It’s objectively surprising to hear someone talking from inside a top locker, but out of everyone it could be, he’s not surprised that it’s Byeongkwan.

It’s not exactly the craziest thing he’s ever done.

So far, since high school started, Byeongkwan:

  * dyed his hair neon orange after keeping it pink for a week. In fact, he’s been pink, orange, brown, blond, darker pink, red, blond again, grey, darker brown, and now lighter brown. All in the span of three years. It’s a miracle he still has hair.
  * requested to be called “Jason” for all of junior year before changing his mind at the beginning of senior year and going back to his real name.
  * wore blue contact lenses for a whole school year and most of two and managed to convince three of his teachers that his eyes were actually blue.
  * started a petition to make the school board let him join the cheerleading team, which garnered hundreds of signatures. After a few absurdly hostile PTA meetings, the school board gave up and he became the newest addition to varsity cheer.
  * completely demolished the bullshit dress code. He ignored every detention notice teachers gave him for his ‘inappropriate decisions regarding his attire.’ He also made sure to point out that there was nothing in the student handbook that said that he, as a boy, couldn’t wear crop tops or booty shorts or anything of the like. Almost all of the school’s male population joined his movement. Somehow, Donghun convinced everyone on the guys’ basketball team to wear skirts one day. The school board gave up yet again and got rid of most of the dress code. Byeongkwan Kim - 2, school board - 0.
  * caused a full-fledged fight. He forged notes to two dickheads in their grade saying he would give two hundred dollars to whoever successfully asked him out to the fall dance. Byeongkwan signed the notes as the captain of the soccer team (who was glad to be a part of the scheme, as one of them egged his girlfriend’s car). They tried to take each other out in the cafeteria, each of them reasoning that the other couldn’t ask Byeongkwan out if he was injured. The whole thing resulted in a bloody nose, countless bruises and a fractured wrist. They were suspended for two weeks and Byeongkwan ended up going to the fall dance with Yuchan as friends.
  * hijacked the loudspeaker and came out to the entire school.



That last one was quite an experience.

* * *

_January, Freshman Year_

“Is Byeongkwan here?” Sehyoon’s biology teacher glances at the empty seat a table away. His classmates only shrug, and the teacher sighs as she puts an X next to his name. 

Sehyoon taps his pencil against his notebook. There have to be over a hundred graphite dots on the page by now. Anxiousness has swept over the school, and his third period biology class is no exception; rumors of an early dismissal have been buzzing since the first few flurries that morning. Eyes impatiently dart between the snow piling up outside and the old clock above the door, ticking away to their possible freedom. With each passing second, the students grow more and more antsy. They’re twenty minutes into the lesson when the loudspeaker crackles to life. A few students let out small cheers.

“Hi, everyone,” says someone who sounds nothing like Ms. Hyeim Kim.

Hold on, is that— 

Sehyoon looks over at Byeongkwan’s empty seat.

It is.

“I hope you’ve all been having a lovely day,” Byeongkwan continues.

His classmates start muttering in confusion.

“Because _I_ certainly haven’t been having a lovely day. Or a lovely week. Or a lovely past few months, if I’m being honest. Wanna know what I found on my locker a few days ago? I found a couple of sticky notes with some interesting words concerning my perceived sexuality, none of which I'd like to repeat. They're not fun to read. They're not nice to see it on your locker. It’s not nice to put that on people’s lockers. It’s kind of a dick move, actually.”

His voice is as cold as the frost on the window panes. 

“This isn’t the first time this has happened, by the way. Or the second time. Or the third time. All of these assholes have tried to remain anonymous except for one. How brave of you, Chad. How commendable. You’re like, one rank lower on the asshole scale. Good for you.”

His classmates burst into laughter while the teacher sits at her desk, mouth opening and closing like a fish. She seems to have trouble processing anything that’s happened in the past few minutes.

“Now, notice how I said _‘tried_ to remain anonymous.’ As it turns out, there are witnesses. Witnesses who saw what happened and know exactly who did it. Out of the kindness of my heart, I’m not going to say who left the notes. However, I’ll gladly tell you who the witnesses are if you ask me. And I don’t think they’re willing to keep these assholes’ names a secret. I’m sure that the faculty here will punish them in some form or another. But I don’t think that serving a few detentions is going to make them change their ways.”

The room becomes deadly silent.

“It’s kind of sad. They don’t know how many people will feel upset on my behalf. They don’t know that I’m good friends with varsity athletes Yuchan Kang and Junhee Park. They don’t know that I’m good friends with Donghun Lee, one of the most impressive members of the school choir. They don’t know that I’m good friends with a large part of the girls on the cheerleading team. So now all these people know what they did, and they’ve got the boys’ varsity soccer team, the school choir, and the cheerleading team against them. Oh, and I’m not sure if Junhee Park’s sister, student body president Jaekyung Park, would approve of their actions either. So that’s student council, too.”

Sehyoon didn’t know someone could destroy some bastards’ social statuses so calmly.

“In case you’re wondering, yes, I am gay. Very much so. Stop being a dick about it, Chad. I’m also single, so if anyone’s interested, hit me up. But don't think for a second that I don’t have high standards. Alright, that was nice to get off my chest. We’ve learned two things today, everyone. Number one, don’t be a dick. Number two, I like dick. Uh, bye?”

As the class goes wild, Sehyoon pulls on his sweatshirt strings to hide his bright red face. 

So Byeongkwan like guys. And he has high standards.

This somehow makes everything a million times better and a million times worse.

* * *

Sehyoon still doesn’t know how he managed to remotely operate the loudspeaker from a supply closet. He doesn’t know how he manages to do half the things he does. And now, ‘the things he does’ includes getting himself stuck in a top locker, apparently.

“So. Uh. What are you doing in a locker?” Sehyoon asks. He’s always been terrible at icebreakers, but this one takes the cake. 

“It’s none of your business,” Byeongkwan replies, trying and failing to masquerade his voice by making it deeper. “Get your stuff and get out.”

“Uh. Okay then. It’s not even my stuff, but whatever. I guess—”

“Wait. Do I know you?” Byeongkwan clears his throat and makes his voice deeper again. “You kinda sound like this guy in my calculus class.”

“Um. I. _Um._ I’m Sehyoon.”

“Oh! Sehyoon! Thank God. It’s Byeongkwan in here. I thought you were one of the guys on the football team,” he says in his normal voice.

“What’s so bad about the football team?” Sehyoon knits his eyebrows.

“My ex. We haven’t talked in months and it’s awkward seeing him. We didn’t exactly break up on the best of terms.” Byeongkwan mumbles the last part.

“So... you… chose to hide... in a locker,” Sehyoon says slowly. 

“Duh.” He can imagine Byeongkwan rolling his eyes.

“Are you sure you can get out of there?” Sehyoon asks.

“Of course I can,” Byeongkwan scoffs. Sehyoon steps back as he pushes the locker open.

Nothing could’ve possibly prepared him for the vision before him. First of all, he’s crouching up there like some sort of bird perched sideways, his elbows on his knees and his head facing left to look at Sehyoon. Second of all, he’s wearing a tank top and very short shorts and he’s kind of sweaty and his hair is sticking to his forehead. 

He looks stupid and perfect. Stupidly perfect.

Sehyoon desperately tries to keep himself from staring at the large expanse of bare skin that’s less than a foot away from him. He finds himself staring at his lips instead, which isn’t much better. They’re slightly swollen.

Byeongkwan follows his line of sight. “I got hit with a sneaker during cheer practice,” he explains. “I’m lucky I didn’t get a black eye. My mouth just feels a little numb.” He taps his lips for emphasis.

Sehyoon swallows thickly. “So, how do you plan on getting out of there?”

Byeongkwan scoots around inside the locker until he’s facing Sehyoon. He looks at the floor, then at the bench, then at him.

“Catch me.”

“What.” It’s more of a statement than a question.

“ _Catch me_.”

“Look, that doesn’t sound too safe, maybe we—”

“If you can, that is.” Byeongkwan’s eyes glimmer and a smirk flashes across his face.

“I—I mean I can. I definitely can,” Sehyoon stutters. “But I don’t think—”

“Okay, good. I’ll jump out on the count of three. Try to catch me.”

“This sounds like a terrible—”

“One.”

“—idea, and you’re already kinda injured, what if—”

“Two.”

“—you get seriously hurt, I—”

“Three.”

Byeongkwan launches himself out of the locker and latches onto Sehyoon. The latter nearly topples over from the amount of force; he staggers backwards, holding the former up by the back of his thighs. Byeongkwan grabs his shoulders to steady himself as Sehyoon tries to find a sense of balance again. It’s comical, really; he stumbles back and forth for a while as if he’s performing some weird rendition of the cha-cha slide. Sehyoon accidentally leans forward a bit too much and ends up ramming him against the lockers.

“Ah, _Sehyoon!”_ Byeongkwan cries out and winces.

His voice makes Sehyoon’s ears burn and he looks up. Byeongkwan’s staring at him, out of breath, his lips parted and his eyes half-closed. He’s absolutely _stunning_. For a few seconds, he drinks in the view before him, trying to commit every detail to memory. He wouldn't mind it if this moment lasted forever, if— 

The sound of an empty reusable water bottle hitting concrete echoes throughout the locker room. Sehyoon and Byeongkwan’s heads snap towards the source of the noise.

Junhee is standing paralyzed at the end of the row of lockers. His gaze travels from Sehyoon’s face to Byeongkwan’s eyes to Byeongkwan’s slightly swollen lips to Sehyoon’s chest leaning into the other’s to Byeongkwan’s hands on Sehyoon’s shoulders to Byeongkwan’s legs around Sehyoon’s hips to Sehyoon’s fingers pressing into Byeongkwan’s thighs.

“You. You didn’t text me back,” Junhee says, his eyes wide and his voice small.

“Oh.” Sehyoon realizes that he never actually sent the text. Crap.

“Yeah.” Junhee’s eyes are trained on Byeongkwan, who’s still pinned against the lockers. “I didn’t know you two… uh. Yeah.”

“It’s not what you think,” Sehyoon says, which is just about the worst thing anyone can say when caught holding someone up by their thighs in an otherwise-empty locker room. He’s blind to Byeongkwan’s gestures to put him down and absentmindedly pushes into him further. Byeongkwan tries to move his legs out of his grasp, but the feeling of his thighs rubbing against Sehyoon’s hips only makes Sehyoon tighten his grip. At this, Byeongkwan softly whines.

Sehyoon.exe has stopped working.

Junhee awkwardly shambles over to his backpack, looking very much like a newly-hatched gecko that’s learning how to walk. His gaze never leaves Byeongkwan and Sehyoon as if he’s convinced they might start making out (or more) if he’s not watching.

“Well, I have a doctor’s appointment to get to.” Junhee slings his backpack over his shoulder and picks up his water bottle.

“Cool.” Sehyoon starts slowly nodding, the only motor skill he’s capable of when Byeongkwan’s whines are ringing in his ears.

“By the way, the other guys on the soccer team are gonna be here in twenty minutes, so just… just make it quick, alright?” Junhee says, looking down.

Sehyoon chokes.

It takes what feels like centuries for Junhee to leave.

Sehyoon finally puts Byeongkwan down and takes a few steps back before sprinting out of the locker room.

This is officially the worst day of his life.

* * *

Of course he decides to wear shorts the next day. _Of course._

His pale thighs are on full display as he struts into the courtyard. The dress code is loose, but even so, there’s no way that those shorts are allowed. Someone calls his name and he turns around.

There are bruises on his thighs. _Sehyoon left bruises._ Holy fuck.

Only then does Sehyoon notice that people are whispering and pointing at Byeongkwan’s legs, probably wondering who fucked him hard enough to leave bruises like those. It suddenly feels very warm outside. 

Byeongkwan turns around again and catches sight of Sehyoon looking at his thighs. He waves at him and winks—acts which don’t go unnoticed by the people around him. Sehyoon is met with a few disbelieving stares and pulls his hood down until it’s covering his eyes. Why does it have to be _him_ , can’t it be anyone else, why did Junhee text _him_ , why— 

“Hey. Sehyoon. Earth to Sehyoon. We have a project to work on,” Yuchan says, waving his hand in Sehyoon’s face.

“Oh. Right. Sorry,” Sehyoon mumbles. “Uh, I think we should change the formatting of this paragraph. The spacing’s weird and it’s kinda off-center.”

“I think that’s just the font.” Yuchan wrinkles his nose at his laptop. “We should probably change it or at least change the size. Or we could—”

Whatever else Yuchan says gets blurred out by Sehyoon’s mind because Byeongkwan chooses that exact moment to walk over.

“Hey guys,” he says, looking only at Sehyoon. He jumps up to sit on the table in a way that makes his bruises impossible not to notice.

Donghun mutters something to himself and looks away while Yuchan’s face goes pink.

“So, how’s the project going?” Byeongkwan asks, swinging his legs, still looking at Sehyoon.

“It’s going pretty well,” Yuchan replies. “We just have to fix some formatting issues, and—”

“And we’d like to finish it today, but _some of us_ haven’t been focusing enough.” Donghun squints at Sehyoon.

Byeongkwan smiles. “How’s the project going for you, _Yoon?”_ He lifts his chin up with his thumb and forefinger.

The nickname and the skin contact make his heart beat a little faster and his brain a little more numb.

“It’s… um… it’s going… uhh...?” Sehyoon can hear the Windows XP error noise in the back of his head.

“Sorry, Byeongkwan, but we really need to get back to work,” Donghun says, not the least bit apologetic. “ _Goodbye_.”

Byeongkwan pouts and hops off of the table, making sure to pat Sehyoon’s head before rejoining his other friends.

“Wow… I didn’t know you and Byeongkwan were so… _close_ ,” Yuchan nervously laughs. “So, is it true that you guys really—?”

He makes a series of increasingly vague gestures.

Sehyoon blinks.

Yuchan tries again. “I'm asking if you—?” He waves his hands around some more.

_“What?”_

“Did you”—Yuchan leans in as closely as possible— _"fuck?"_

The last part is a barely audible whisper.

“I—what—I didn’t— _no! I did not fuck Byeongkwan!”_

The people at the next table over look at him incredulously.

Sehyoon’s face turns red. “What even gave you that idea? We’re not even friends, never mind friends with benefits or some shit like that.”

“Junhee told us,” Donghun simply says, shrugging.

Yuchan elbows him in the ribs. _“Donghun!”_

“Shit, were we not supposed to know?”

_“No!”_

“Well, fuck. It’s too late now. Anyways, Junhee told us that he saw you two fucking in the locker room. Or rather, about to fuck,” Donghun explains.

Yuchan shakes his head.

Sehyoon’s eyes widen. “Did he really say—?”

“I mean, he said ‘getting together’ but he obviously meant ‘fucking.’ So, if you’re telling the truth, were you at least planning to fuck? ‘Cause if you were, that’s some kinky shit, Sehyoon.”

“The whole thing was an accident,” Sehyoon says. “I know it sounds like too much of a coincidence, but I’m telling the truth. Yeah, I’m the one who caused the bruises, and whatever Junhee told you he saw _did_ happen, but we didn’t… _do anything_ and we certainly weren’t planning to, either.”

The period ends and Sehyoon tries to get through the rest of the school day, ignoring the stares and whispers of people who assumed that Sehyoon, the quiet, emo art kid pounded the cheer captain’s ass on school grounds.

Eventually the final bell rings and Sehyoon heads to his car. He and his sister toss their things into the trunk and get inside.

“Congrats,” Eunsuh says as she straps herself in.

“On what?”

“Getting laid.”

Sehyoon starts wheezing as he puts the key in the ignition. “Who told you that I got laid?”

“Oh, so you _did_ get laid!” Eunsuh grins.

“ _I did not fuck Byeongkwan in the locker room!”_

“It was in the locker room, huh? I heard it was in a classroom.”

“That’s not important. Who’d you hear all this from?”

“Well, I heard it from this guy in my chem class, who has a brother who’s a junior, who has a girlfriend on the cheer team,” Eunsuh says. “At least half the school knows about it.”

“And where did she hear it from?”

“Byeongkwan.”

Sehyoon almost swerves into a tree. _“What?!”_

“Christ, Sehyoon, keep your eyes on the road. Yeah, Byeongkwan’s been going around telling people that you’re the one who gave him all those bruises.”

Sehyoon is silent for the rest of the ride.

As soon as they get home, he whips out his phone and looks for Byeongkwan’s contact.

**please never talk to this person**

**Today** 3:15 PM

_Hey_

_What exactly have you been telling everyone_

_About what happened yesterday_

_i just told them that the bruises are ur fault lol_

_Did you tell them that we had sex_

_Because a lot of people think that we had sex_

_owo i didn’t say anything like that_

_yeah i guess some people probably assumed some things tho :p_

_Probably_

_Did you bother to correct their assumptions_

_if they think u fucked me in the locker room then that’s their problem_

_besides it’s not the worst rumor lmao_

_everyone thinks that ur really good in bed now_

_ur welcome yoon ;)_

Sehyoon chucks his phone across his room and screams into his pillow.

If he never talks to Byeongkwan again, maybe everyone will forget about what happened in the locker room. It’s fine. It’s easy. All he has to do is not talk, which he’s pretty good at.

He can do this. He can get through the rest of senior year without saying a single word to him. It shouldn’t be that difficult.

(Or so he thinks.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, Ms. Lia is Lia Kim, and Beat’s CEO Kim Hyeim is the principal, I’m very creative, this was supposed to be a oneshot but then I started getting ideas and now it’s gonna be at least 60k words (whoops), and yes I also drew the picture of BK, please humor me and pretend that it looks like a traditional drawing and not a digital painting


	3. Why So Serious

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 of this mess, y'all. From now up until the last chapter I’m gonna try to make the chapter titles song lyrics bc I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. I forgot to mention their ages, too ~~bc I’m the big stupid~~ so the age order is still the same (since their birthdays just so happen to be in age order) and Chan just skipped a grade ig, so rn in the story everyone is (say the name) seventeen and Chan’s sixteen (btw if you see any phrases that vaguely resemble song lyrics/titles that’s not a coincidence)
> 
> ALSO!!! **_IMPORTANT!!!!!!_** please take a second to download [this font](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Bad+Script?query=bad+sc) and [this font](https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Nanum+Pen+Script) (it'll take less than thirty seconds I swear, it's just so that you don't have to view the handwriting bits in Chalkboard SE, which is a good font but I want more ~personality~) (unfortunately it doesn't work on mobile TT) (you just gotta click the download button, open the folder, open the .ttf file, brush past the warning, and then you're set)

“How do I look? Do you think he’ll be able to recognize me?” Sehyoon adjusts the baseball cap on his head. “I should’ve used a bucket hat. What would be better, a bucket hat or a baseball cap?”

Junhee pokes at his tater tots while Donghun gazes longingly at an empty seat at the choir kids’ table.

“Maybe he’s having lunch somewhere else,” Sehyoon murmurs to himself. “I _hope_ he’s having lunch somewhere else. Where—” 

Junhee abruptly gets up. “I’m going to get a few more napkins.”

“But you’ve already got so many, don’t—”

“ _I’m going to get a few more napkins_ ,” Junhee repeats, his voice shrill. He nudges Donghun as he pushes in his chair, pulling his attention back to the table.

Sehyoon frowns. “What’s up with him?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think it has to do with the fact that you’ve been acting _batshit crazy_ ever since what happened with Byeongkwan.”

“No I haven’t.” Sehyoon pushes up his ridiculously large pair of sunglasses.

Donghun stares at him, dumbfounded. “Talk to him. It won’t kill you. I promise. Stop running away every time you see him, at the very least.”

“But—” 

“But _nothing_. What are you gonna do? Wear shitty disguises and hide in empty classrooms for the next seven months?”

Sehyoon nods.

Donghun groans and holds his head in his hands. “What’s so different about him?”

Sehyoon mumbles something into his milk carton.

“What was that?”

He repeats himself, only slightly louder this time.

“I can’t hear anything you’re saying.”

“He's _Byeongkwan_. And I’m a disaster,” Sehyoon sighs. 

“Yeah? And?”

“And that means I can’t talk to him. Because I’m terrible and I’m gonna mess everything up by saying something weird, and that’s if I manage to say anything at all.”

“You are perhaps the most stupid person I’ve ever met,” Donghun deadpans.

Sehyoon’s face scrunches up. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me to stop shit-talking myself?”

“I mean, you’re not wrong.”

Sehyoon sulks. 

“So I’m lifting her up, right? Then I notice one of her sneakers is untied. And I tell her she should tie it, and she says she will, but she’s just watching TikToks during the next water break. She starts doing back handsprings after that—her form could use some work—and then—oh! Hi Donghun!” Byeongkwan waves as he enters the cafeteria and walks over to their table with Yuchan.

Sehyoon pulls down his baseball cap and looks away. 

“Hey Yoon! I was wondering if you want to talk after school.”

Shit, he should really improve his disguises. He can feel Byeongkwan’s gaze burning holes in the back of his head and he knows he’s showing off that god-awful smirk of his. 

_“Talk to him_.”

Sehyoon’s eyes flicker towards the exit.

“Sehyoon, _no_.”

He scoots his chair back and Donghun grabs onto his sleeve.

“You can’t keep avoiding him like this,” Donghun whispers.

Sehyoon looks at Byeongkwan and Yuchan and for a second he actually considers staying. Then Byeongkwan pulls out the seat next to his with one hand and takes Sehyoon’s baseball cap off with the other. Sehyoon’s body tenses as he ruffles his hair. 

No. Nope. _Absolutely not_.

Sehyoon nearly knocks his chair over in his effort to get as far away from him as possible.

He can’t handle any more of Byeongkwan’s ambushes of affection. He doesn’t know if he can deal with another wink or chest poke or, God forbid, one more hug from behind. He can’t do this.

Donghun yanks him back into his seat. “You are _not_ —what do you think you’re—get back here!”

Sehyoon unzips his jacket, wriggles out of it, grabs his sandwich, and makes a dash for the exit, walking as fast as he can without being pulled aside by a teacher. He navigates his way through the hallways and pushes his way past students (“Sorry, sorry, I have to be somewhere—”) until he reaches the bathroom and locks himself inside a stall.

Eating lunch in the bathroom isn’t so bad. Sure, there are questionable stains on the walls, crude messages etched into the doors, and two students loudly making out a few stalls over, but it’s otherwise fine. Jesus, it sounds as if neither of them have come up for air in the past three minutes. He prays that they don’t try to do anything worse. 

It’s okay. He can get through it. As long as Byeongkwan isn’t there, everything’s okay. He’s halfway through his sandwich when the door clicks open.

“Yoon?” Byeongkwan calls out, prompting the couple to bolt out of the bathroom.

God-fucking- _dammit_.

“I don’t know if you’re still here, but I really want to talk to you sometime,” he says.

Sehyoon tries to stay as quiet as humanly possible.

“You’re a lot weirder now than you were last week. Look, I know it was awkward, and I’m sorry about implying that, ahem, _certain things_ happened. I want to be on good terms with you. You don’t hate me, do you? Did I say anything wrong?”

 _I could never hate you,_ Sehyoon wants to say, but he remains silent.

“It’s kinda strange, isn’t it?” he continues. “I’m friends with your friends and you’d think we would end up hanging out with each other eventually but that never happened. You’re dorky and weird and I’ve always sort of wanted to be friends with you, but somehow we’ve never talked.”

He leans against the door of Sehyoon’s stall. The lock wiggles open a bit, but it’s just far enough out from his reach to fix it. Curse this bathroom and its broken locks.

“I know I’m not that good with personal space—”

An understatement.

“—and you don’t seem like the kind of person who likes being too physical—”

Even more of an understatement.

“—so I can try and keep my hands to myself if you want. I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I just really want to get to know you.”

He walks away, leaving Sehyoon drowning in a sea of guilt.

As Byeongkwan opens the door, Sehyoon’s phone buzzes and starts playing the Mii Channel music.

The door closes again and Sehyoon stops breathing. The rhythmic melody keeps on blasting from his phone’s speakers while Byeongkwan walks back, his cherry-printed high-top Converse® stopping right in front of Sehyoon’s stall. 

Sehyoon drops his phone from sheer terror, but he manages to catch it just before it hits the ground. The music stops. Which means he either declined the call or—

“Where the hell are you?” Donghun says, undoubtedly loud enough for Byeongkwan to hear. “He’s looking for you, you know, and when he finds you, you better not be a dick and run away again or _so help me_ I’m going to tell him exactly what you wrote in your diary during freshm—”

“ _Donghun_ ,” Sehyoon hisses into the receiver. “He’s here.”

“Well then, did you decide to stop being a coward or did he hunt you down?”

“Oh, I hunted him down,” Byeongkwan laughs from the other side of the stall.

Sehyoon can feel his face heating up.

“Of course,” Donghun mutters. “Whatever, just keep talking to him.” He hangs up.

“What was Grandpa Dong threatening to tell me about?” Byeongkwan asks. Either he’s genuinely curious or he’s very good at feigning ignorance.

“Noth—he’s not—he’s kidding,” Sehyoon stutters. “He’s just joking.”

“If you say so.”

Sehyoon reminds himself to personally execute Donghun later.

“Anyways, I have a test next period, and Chan said he would let me look at his notes, so I have to go soon.”

Byeongkwan leans against Sehyoon’s stall again and the lock finally gives out. The door creaks open and he’s greeted with the sight of Sehyoon immobilized on the toilet, phone in one hand and chicken salad sandwich in the other.

Byeongkwan suppresses a giggle and points at the corner of Sehyoon’s mouth. “You’ve got something there.”

Sehyoon sticks out his tongue to lick the crumbs off just as Byeongkwan tries to brush them away with his thumb.

He almost screams as he accidentally licks Byeongkwan’s hand. Byeongkwan maintains eye contact as he brings his hand to his mouth and licks his thumb, crumbs and Sehyoon’s saliva included, and it takes Sehyoon’s full willpower to keep himself from whimpering.

“Chan’s probably looking for me,” Byeongkwan says, completely unfazed by his distress.

“O-Okay.”

He pivots and sashays away.

“You’re quite something, Yoon,” he adds before he leaves (for real this time).

Sehyoon looks down and wishes the pipes were big enough so that he could flush himself down the toilet.

* * *

Sehyoon blankly stares at his bowl of Frosted Flakes®, thinking about how it would be a lot nicer if school started an hour later. Or two. Or three. Or seven, to be honest.

“Hey, are you planning on eating breakfast anytime soon?” Eunsuh asks. “You’ve been sitting there for the past five minutes.”

“Hmm? What?” Sehyoon mumbles, about two seconds away from face-planting into his cereal.

“We’re taking the bus this morning.”

“No, no, it’s fine, I can drive you, I can—”

“No you can’t,” Eunsuh says, lacing up her boots. “You’re gonna pass out at the wheel, and I’m not in the mood to die at 7:45 in the morning. _We’re taking the bus._ Now hurry up, it’s gonna get here soon.”

Sehyoon groans as he pulls himself from the kitchen table and trudges upstairs. He tries to get through the rest of his morning routine with as much speed and intensity as possible (i.e. that of a three-toed sloth). He’s halfway finished when he realizes he’ll have to give up on trying to fix his physical appearance if he wants to catch the bus on time. Oh well, he’ll just have to keep his hood up and hope no one notices the dark circles under his eyes. A quick glance at the clock tells him he has a minute left. He grabs his backpack and finally opens the door only to see the bus zooming away.

Great. He’s ready to crawl back into bed before he remembers that it’s review day for his French test tomorrow and he has no friends in that class so he can’t get the notes from anyone. Hopefully he won’t crash into any trees on the way to school.

Sehyoon goes back inside and reaches for his keys on top of the coat rack. However, instead of touching cold metal, his hand lands on a piece of paper. He squints at the note.

_I took your keys bc I don’t want you to die, please get more sleep (´･ω･`)_

There goes his French grade.

He turns to close the door when a blue car (the same shade as a certain person’s dumb contact lenses) pulls up to the sidewalk.

“Hey, do you need a ride?” Byeongkwan calls out, rolling down his window.

Sehyoon has two options. He can either

A) say yes and maybe pass his French test, or

B) keep whatever’s left of his dignity intact and fail the test.

He’d love to choose option B but he can’t afford to score lower than an A-.

He locks the door behind him and begrudgingly heads towards Byeongkwan’s car, looking very much like a feral raccoon. “Yeah, sure, thanks.”

“No problem. I saw Eunsuh getting on the bus, but you weren’t there. Are you having car problems?”

“Sleep problems,” Sehyoon answers as he climbs into the passenger seat.

“How much sleep did you get?”

“Uh, seven, I think.”

“That’s not too bad.”

“Minutes.”

“That’s… okay, that’s bad,” Byeongkwan says. “It’s a good thing I showed up, then.”

“I probably would've turned down your offer if Eunsuh didn’t steal my keys.”

Byeongkwan stifles a laugh. “She _what?”_

“She stole my keys so I couldn’t drive myself to school. She told me to sleep in.”

“Well, I’m glad she stole your keys. And she’s right. You should sleep. Turn those seven minutes into seventeen.”

“You sure? I don’t—”

“Shut up and sleep!” Byeongkwan presses a finger to Sehyoon’s lips.

He doesn’t know if it’s the exhaustion or the physical contact that makes him pass out.

Twelve minutes later, he’s awakened by Byeongkwan poking his cheek.

“Huh?”

“C’mon, we’re here,” Byeongkwan says, wiping drool off of Sehyoon’s chin with his sleeve. His voice is even softer than his sweater.

“Oh. Uh, thanks again. Your car’s really comfortable.” Sehyoon tries to keep his gaze away from his smile as he exits his car—if he looks, he won’t be able to focus on anything else the whole school day.

Byeongkwan laughs and tugs at the strings of Sehyoon’s sweatshirt (and his heart, too, if he’s being honest). “It’s so cold, are you sure you aren’t freezing right now?”

“My sweatshirt’s keeping me pretty warm.” Yep. It’s the sweatshirt. Totally.

Byeongkwan rests his head against Sehyoon’s shoulder as they walk to the entrance. It’s twenty degrees Fahrenheit outside but Sehyoon feels like he could melt.

It’s only when Byeongkwan gives him his backpack in the hallway that Sehyoon realizes he’s been carrying it for him.

“By the way, I called Donghun while you were sleeping. He picked up coffee for you. And don’t worry about paying anyone back, I got you.”

“You didn’t have to do all this,” Sehyoon says quietly.

“Well, I did. Now do me a favor and try not to fall asleep during class.” 

“I’ll do my best.”

Byeongkwan brushes Sehyoon’s bangs out of his face. “Good.”

Sehyoon bumps into several people as he walks towards Donghun’s locker (Is it the sleep deprivation? Is it the lovesickness? Who knows?), one of them being Junhee.

“Hey, is Donghun getting you coffee too?” Junhee asks.

“Yeah. You have no idea how badly I need it.”

“You wouldn’t need it so much if you slept more,” Junhee chastises.

“Tell that to my insomnia.”

“Hi, Sehyoon’s insomnia, Junhee Park speaking.” He knocks on Sehyoon’s head. “Please stop existing so he can stop wasting all of his money on coffee and maybe not be so dead inside.”

“I’m not wasting all of my money on coffee. Besides, B—” Sehyoon catches himself; he doesn’t want Junhee thinking they’re together. “Someone else paid for it this time.”

Junhee raises his eyebrows. “Who? I certainly didn’t, and Donghun would never, and you don’t have any other friends I’m aware of. _Unless_.”

“It was… It was... Umm—what’s up, Donghun! Thanks for the coffee,” Sehyoon stammers, glad to avoid the question.

A tray with three cups of coffee balances precariously on top of Donghun’s stack of textbooks as he nudges past the other students.

Junhee takes the tray. “Hey, who paid for Sehyoon’s coffee?”

Dammit, Junhee.

“What, no ‘good morning’? No ‘how are you’? No ‘thanks for going out of your way and spending six minutes in line at Brew Interactive, you’re the nicest and most attractive guy I know’? Some boyfriend you are,” Donghun retorts. “I’ll give you a hint. His initials are B.K. And it’s not Brian Kang.”

“I suspected as much,” Junhee says, sipping his coffee.

“I can’t believe you got yourself a sugar daddy. Who would’ve thought?”

“He is _not_ my—my—” Sehyoon struggles to say the phrase.

A shit-eating grin is plastered on Donghun’s face. “Your _what?”_

Sehyoon takes a deep breath. “He’s not my _sugar daddy._ Or regular daddy, either.”

“Oh, sorry. Are you his?” Donghun muses.

“ _No!”_

Junhee chokes on his small latte (two pumps of vanilla and a bit of pumpkin spice because he’s a basic bitch; he’d usually go for a strawberry latte, but Donghun won’t let him get a brain freeze this early in the morning). “Please, Hun, it’s not even eight yet.”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.” Donghun flicks Junhee’s neck, causing him to wince and rub the violated area. “So, how’d you get here? I didn’t see your car in the lot.”

“Byeongkwan rode me.”

Donghun and Junhee nearly spill their coffee.

“...Okay then,” Junhee says after regaining his composure. “If you guys did that, I’m assuming he drove you here?”

Sehyoon blinks in confusion. “Yeah, that’s what I just said.”

The amount of concern written on Junhee’s face is astronomical. “It really isn’t.” 

“Wait, what did I say?”

Junhee’s about to respond when Donghun cuts him off. “Nothing. Just a Freudian slip.”

“What did I say? Did I not say that he drove me?”

“It’s not important.”

“ _What did I say?”_

“Nothing.”

Sehyoon gives up and goes to his locker, which he nearly walks into. There’s a piece of paper taped to it. There are pieces of paper taped to several lockers, actually. He rubs his eyes. They’re flyers—flyers that look like they were created by a seven-year-old who just downloaded MS Paint.

**_6TH ANNUAL SKATING COMPETITION_ **

_When: Saturday, October 24th, 2:00 PM_

_Where: M Countdown Skate Park_

_Prize: $50 + $25 Olive Garden gift card_

_Text Jae Park or_ ~~_Brian_~~ _Younghyun Kang if you’re participating_

_Text one of us if you’re just watching too because we need to know how much pizza to order_

_Bring money for pizza (we’re not paying for all that)_

_Deadline for signing up is October 22nd_

_Brackets will be randomly generated_

_Make sure to bring your own skateboard!!!_

Oh. The skating competition. The one that’s been held by the guys in his grade every October since middle school. The one that resulted in him breaking his ankle two years ago. The one that he participated in for the sole purpose of getting Byeongkwan to notice him. _That_ skating competition.

He tears off the flyer and tosses it into a nearby garbage can before taking his textbooks from his locker and rushing to AP Calculus BC. As per usual, he’s the last student to arrive. He drops his backpack and collapses onto the seat across from Byeongkwan.

He’s too tired to try drawing him, or try keeping his head up long enough to look at him, for that matter. He props his elbows up on the desk and rests his chin on his hands in a desperate attempt to appear attentive.

The teacher leaves mid-lesson to retrieve something from her office and everyone starts sharing the answers to the problems on their worksheets. Sehyoon finished his americano a while ago, and it didn’t really do much, and sitting down is only making him sleepier. He’d take a nap right then and there if Byeongkwan hadn’t told him to stay awake. His eyes wander to Byeongkwan’s mouth; it’s moving, but Sehyoon’s exhausted brain has completely given up its speech comprehension abilities. Byeongkwan suddenly goes silent and blinks at him expectantly.

Sehyoon didn’t even realize Byeongkwan’s talking to him. “Um, what?”

“Yes or no?”

Shit, he wants an answer. Now, the smart thing to do would be to ask him to repeat himself, but as shown earlier, Sehyoon is dumb as shit. And with that face, how can he say no?

“Uh, yeah.”

“Really?” Byeongkwan beams. “I didn’t think you would say yes. You’ve never been to one of these competitions, have you? You really should, you know, Donghun’s pretty good. Hold on, you do art, right? Can you help me put some cool designs on my skateboard tomorrow?”

Sehyoon attempts to put the pieces together—competition… Donghun… skateboard. He just agreed to go to the skating competition, didn’t he? Fuck.

“I’ll check my calendar,” he says, reminding himself to come up with some excuse (maybe a third-cousin-twice-removed’s birthday party?) later. “I participated in one of them, actually. The one in sophomore year.”

Byeongkwan’s face lights up. “I remember that one! I got third place. It was rescheduled because of that idiot who broke his ankle. It must’ve been so embarrassing for him, messing up in the first round like that. He tripped on his skateboard and tumbled down the half-pipe. I don’t think he was wearing a helmet or knee pads or anything, either. I can’t imagine how much it hurt.”

Sehyoon slides further down into his seat. “It was the second round.”

“Oh, was it?”

“Yeah, I should know,” he says. “I'm the idiot.”

Byeongkwan’s hands fly over his mouth. “That was _you?_ I thought it was—oh God, it _was_ you. I’m so sorry for calling you an idiot. I mean, you _are_ an idiot, but you’re like, a cool idiot.”

“Okay…?”

“Hold on, I take that back. You’re not that cool. Kind of the opposite, really. I didn’t know someone could be so awkward. What I meant to say is that I didn’t mean it in a bad way.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Depends. Do you want me to compliment you?” Byeongkwan smirks.

Sehyoon licks his lips nervously. “Ye-Yes. Wait, _no._ I mean no. Please don’t.”

“ _Please,_ huh? Wow, I would’ve never thought—”

“I am doing all I can to concentrate on the practice problems,” the student next to Sehyoon says flatly. “And I would very much appreciate it if you two would stop being so open about how badly you want to get in each other’s pants during class.”

“I don’t want—”

Byeongkwan reaches across his desk to hold Sehyoon’s hand.

“I _don’t_ —”

His breath hitches as Byeongkwan smiles at him.

Fuck, maybe he does.

* * *

“Wow.”

“I know.”

_“Wow.”_

“I know.”

“Donghun’s right. You’re amazingly stupid.”

_“I know.”_

“So, how are you gonna tell him you can’t go?” Junhee asks, constructing a Jenga® tower out of pencils. He adds another 2H and a 3B and it collapses.

Sehyoon flops onto his bed. “You tell me. I can’t say no. He’s counting on me to be there.”

Junhee bends down to pick up the pencils that fell onto the carpet. “Are you guys friends, then?”

“No! We’re—I—How am I supposed to know?” Sehyoon waves his arms around helplessly.

“You have his number, right? Text him and explain why you can't go. I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“I’m not worried about whether or not he’ll understand. I’m worried he’ll think I’m an asshole for not telling him sooner.”

“He won’t.” 

“You don’t know that.”

“Neither do you,” Junhee points out, sitting down to stack Sehyoon’s pencils again.

Sehyoon groans into the plush stomach of an old stuffed robot (he had a weird phase towards the end of elementary school).

“Look, can’t you tell Ms. Lia you have a dental appointment or something?”

“But I need to be there,” Sehyoon whines. “Her usual assistant has to be at her sister’s wedding and she can’t manage a room full of little kids on her own. And it’s not like she can cancel, either, since her art classes only happen twice a month.”

“How long will the class run until?”

“1:45, I think. Which is fifteen minutes from when the competition starts, and M Countdown is thirty minutes away, and Byeongkwan’s up first, and he’s hyped about being chosen to start it off, so I can’t make him ask to go later. I’m screwed.”

“You can’t just ditch him, though. It’s better to tell him now than never.”

“But that means interacting with him. On purpose. Why would I do that? He might think I like talking to him,” Sehyoon frets.

“Well, do you?” Junhee spins in his chair to face Sehyoon, accidentally knocking over his tower. He elects to ignore the pencils rolling off of the desk.

“Do I what?” 

“Enjoy talking to him.” There’s a whistling noise as Junhee breathes out of his nose, visibly frustrated.

“I—No. No. I can’t. I’m just going to show up at the competition and then we’ll never speak another word to each other as long as we live.” Sehyoon crawls under the covers and yanks them over his head.

“What do you mean, you can’t?” 

“Do I have to say it?” Sehyoon asks, his voice muffled by his blankets.

“Yeah, because you’re making no sense whatsoever.”

“I like him. I like Byeongkwan Kim. _In that way_.” Sehyoon rolls around, tangling himself in his bedsheets. “There. I said it.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

“It has everything to do with anything.” Sehyoon struggles to untangle himself and ends up falling off his bed.

Junhee stands up and walks over to the fuzzy cocoon pathetically wriggling on the ground. “You’re a mess, you know that?”

He crouches to help his friend free himself when his phone starts buzzing with notifications.

Sehyoon’s head pops out from under the pile of blankets. “What is it? Does your mom need you?” 

“You might not need to send that text after all,” Junhee says, scrolling through his messages.

“Huh?”

Junhee shows him his screen.

**skate comp squad**

**Today** 4:06 PM

**Jae**

_Hey everyone! So it turns out that M Countdown is closed for renovations_

_And it won’t be open for another two weeks :))))))_

**Chris Bang**

_bro_

_say sike right now_

**Jae**

_I talked to all the competitors tho_

_And we agreed to just do the speed part of the competition this week_

_We’ll do all the other stuff when it’s open again_

**☼Chan☼**

_where’s the competition gonna be then???_

**Jae**

_Well_

_I can't find any other places with smooth enough floors_

_And the volleyball coach almost never locks the entrance by the gym_

_So we thought we’d do it in the hallways_

_At school_

**Yeosang**

_Wait wait wait is this even legal_

**☼Chan☼**

_hhhhhh I don’t want to get in trouble_

**Jae**

_Me and Brian already came up with a course_

**Younghyun**

_YOUNGHYUN my name is Y O U N G H Y U N_

**Jae**

_Whatever yOuNg K_

**Younghyun**

_ShhhhHH we don’t talk about that_

**Daniel**

_Isn’t that your soundcloud rapper name?_

**Chris Bang**

_his w h a t_

**Younghyun**

_DON’T CALL ME A SOUNDCLOUD RAPPER_

**Jae**

_Do you rap? Yes_

_Do you put your songs on soundcloud? Yes_

_Therefore you are a soundcloud rapper_

**Chris Bang**

_no way!! I put my songs on soundcloud too!!_

_I'm in a group with changbin and your cousin_

_we should collaborate :D_

_**Younghyun** left the conversation._

_**Jae** added Younghyun to the conversation._

**Jae**

_N E Ways I asked around and nobody’s gonna be there this Saturday_

_There’s this one art class for kids but it ends before 2 so they’ll all be picked up by their parents before the competition begins_

**Chris Bang**

_seems mad sketch_

**Jae**

_It’ll be fine_

_As long as we don’t make a mess no one will find out_

_They haven’t checked the security cameras in 45657323 years_

Sehyoon frowns. “This sounds like a bad idea. A terrible idea. The worst idea of all time.”

“Even worse than planning to go to a competition to support someone and then never talk to them again?”

“My plan isn’t _that_ terrible,” Sehyoon argues. “At least it doesn’t involve breaking into school. At least it isn’t borderline _illegal_. I’m not staying for the competition. With my luck, a teacher’s gonna find out. What if we get arrested? Listen, I'll just go to the other parts of the competition when M Countdown opens.” 

“I mean, we’re not really breaking in since the door’s unlocked. And we’re not going to get arrested. The worst thing that could happen is that we all get detention. Come on, it’ll be interesting!”

Sehyoon kicks off the blankets. “Aren’t you the student body vice president? I feel like you shouldn’t be encouraging me to trespass on school grounds on the weekend.”

“I’m encouraging you to be there for him.”

“Where’s the rational Junhee Park that I know and tolerate? The one who would tell me the right thing to do?”

“I believe the phrase is ‘know and _love_.’” Junhee goes in for a hug and pouts as Sehyoon pushes him away. “And he’s right here. He thinks that the right thing to do is keeping a promise you made to your friend.”

_“We’re not friends.”_

Junhee quirks an eyebrow. “That’s debatable.”

“No it isn’t. We’re not friends. I’m not going on Saturday and I’m not talking to him after the other parts of the competition. End of story,” Sehyoon insists.

Junhee’s phone buzzes again. “It looks like my mom wants me home by 4:30 to start making dinner. I should probably go now.”

“Yeah, you probably should.”

“And _you_ should tell Byeongkwan you’re excited to go to the competition. Maybe you could ask him to go out for the rest of the day afterwards.”

Sehyoon chucks one of his pillows at Junhee as he walks out.

_Ding!_

Crap, Junhee must’ve forgotten something. Sehyoon lies down on his bed and checks his texts.

**please never talk to this person**

**Today** 4:13 PM

_hey idk if u heard but we changed the location of the competition_

_can you still come?? :p_

Sehyoon holds his phone high above his face as if the angle will change Byeongkwan’s messages or make them disappear. How is he supposed to respond? He holds his phone to his chest and sighs. It wouldn’t hurt to comply with Junhee for once (except for the “going out” part, that’s still a big no). Sehyoon looks at the vibrant plastic stars glued to his ceiling.

Should he really throw away whatever common sense he has for a pretty boy? Should he really risk getting in trouble for a boy just because he’s got an adorable laugh? Should he really make a colossally dumb decision like this to cheer on a boy who drives him to school and buys him coffee without expecting anything in return?

The answer, of course, is no, but Sehyoon can’t bring himself to reply.

* * *

“Thank you so much for the help,” Ms. Lia says as she reorganizes the last few paint tubes. “Are you sure you can take care of everything else?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” Sehyoon croaks. “Enjoy the rest of the weekend.” He coughs into the crook of his elbow and rolls up his sleeves to wash the brushes.

“I mean, I don’t have to pick up my niece until—”

“No, it’s fine, I got it. I’ll see you on Monday.”

Ms. Lia grabs her jacket and her purse. “You’re a blessing, honestly. Don’t forget to lock the classroom, and drink some tea when you get the chance. Bye!”

Sehyoon weakly grins and waves at her until she leaves. Even though he’d like to be as far from the competition as possible, he’s rather have himself still be at school than Ms. Lia.

He turns on the faucet and tries to clean the paint off the brushes as quickly as possible. It looks like some of the kids forgot to put them back in water when they were done with them. He wouldn’t mind it so much if they were using watercolors, but Ms. Lia chose to use acrylics. Fast-drying acrylics. He would have reminded them not to let the paint dry on the brushes, but he already made two children cry just by looking at them. Talking to them with his sore throat would have probably induced a few instances of spontaneous combustion. 

_Ding!_

He doesn’t have to look over at his phone to know that either Junhee or Donghun is texting him. Maybe if he ignores it, whoever it is will leave him alone.

_Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!_

Sehyoon groans. That’s definitely Junhee.

He haphazardly pats his hands on a nearby roll of paper towels and checks his phone.

**oceanhee**

**Today** 1:54 PM

_We’re almost at school. You better be there when we arrive_

_A certain someone really wants you to come_

_He told us you haven’t been replying to his texts_

_And so Hun said some things I won’t repeat and Chan called you a meanie_

_BK hasn’t said anything else the whole ride :(_

_He’s listening to music and staring out the window like some webtoon protagonist_

_This is how you’re making him feel right now_

_AHHHHHHHH WRONG PHOTO WRONG PHOTO WRONG PHOTO_

_PLEASE forget you ever saw that_

_This is the one I meant to send_

__

_don’t let byeongkwan be bitterkwan. be gay. do crimes. >:DDDD _

_That one was from Chan, he stole my phone for a second_

_Btw Hun says that if you don’t show up, he’s never picking up coffee for you again_

_I’m also not letting you pet any of my dogs unless you say you’re not going to avoid BK after the competition_

_Not even Lion_

Sehyoon wouldn’t expect anything less from Donghun, but pettiness like this is surprising from Junhee. They’re most likely empty threats, but even if they go through with them, they’ll probably forget after a few weeks. He’s seventeen years old, anyways; he can get his own coffee. Plus, he has his own pet to cuddle with. The photo (the one of Byeongkwan, not… whatever the hell that is with Donghun) _does_ make him feel guilty, but Sehyoon is sure he’ll have fun without him. Sehyoon’s not important to Byeongkwan. They’re not friends. They’re just acquaintances who come into contact with each other sometimes. Quite a few times. A lot of times. An immeasurable amount of times. They’re not friends. They’re not friends. _They’re not friends_.

“We’re not friends,” Sehyoon says out loud, as if doing so will make the statement true.

**oceanhee**

_I’m not going_

_How many times do I have to tell you_

_I have a feeling this isn’t entirely about getting in trouble_

_Are you scared of him hugging you or something????_

_...Maybe_

Sehyoon finishes washing the last brush and leaves it on a paper towel to dry. It’s past two o’clock already—he better leave soon or he might run into some of his classmates. Sehyoon locks the door behind him and jogs to his locker; he can’t shake the feeling that he left something there. Probably his calculus textbook. He’s two turns away when something moves in the corner of his eye.

Sehyoon looks to his left and reads the shiny plaque on the wall.

**Mr. H. Cue**

Vice Principal

He freezes and his mind starts producing a laundry list of possible explanations. It’s because he’s tired, it’s because he needs glasses, it’s because his guilt has now manifested itself in the form of hallucinations, it’s because Byeongkwan is driving him clinically insane with his dumb cute face, it’s because— 

There’s more movement. _Shit._

He ducks and peeks into the vice principal’s office.

He’s screwed. Byeongkwan’s screwed. Junhee’s screwed. Donghun’s screwed. Chan’s screwed. Everyone in the competition is _screwed._

Mr. Cue takes a stack of documents from his filing cabinet and begins sorting through them, oblivious to the slowly dying dumbass less than twenty feet away from him. On the bright side, Sehyoon can’t hear anyone from this side of the school. On the not-so-bright side… well, there lies every other aspect of the situation. It doesn’t seem like Mr. Cue’s leaving anytime soon, and if someone decides to take a detour, there’s no way he won’t hear them careening down the hallways.

This will either go down in history as the smoothest escapade of the year or the biggest disaster of October (worse things have happened in other months).

Sehyoon slinks away, determined to get his textbook before he can risk witnessing the issuing of the most simultaneous detentions (or worse) in school history. There have to be at least thirty students there, and it would be a miracle if Mr. Cue didn’t come across any of them. Sehyoon wipes his sweaty palms on his sweatpants and fiddles with the lock.

_Click. Click. Click._

The door doesn’t pop open. He tries again. Five, twenty-three, seventeen. Still nothing. He’s had the same combination for three years, so why isn’t it working? Five, twenty-three, seventeen. Two minutes of struggling later, he realizes he’s been trying to open the wrong locker. He can hear Donghun laughing at him in the back of his head.

It sounds surprisingly accurate—he didn’t know his memory was this good. His laughter gets louder and Sehyoon realizes he’s not imagining it. His bangs poke his eyes as he whips his head around.

“Catch up, Kwan!” Donghun shouts from afar, his voice accompanied by the sound of wheels gliding across concrete.

“I’m doing you a favor by not going all in. Didn’t Junhee say that if you win he’ll suck—”

“ _Sehyoon?”_ Donghun squints at the boy in black as he turns into the hallway. “What the hell…?”

Sehyoon simply stands and stares as he breezes past him on his skateboard. 

“What? No, why the fuck would Junhee give Sehyoon a— _Sehyoon?!”_ Byeongkwan yelps, losing his footing. His happy expression lasts for a second before turning into one of sheer panic.

He tries to change directions, but what little control he had over his skateboard is now completely gone from his momentary surprise. He’s going to crash, whether Sehyoon’s there or not. Byeongkwan frantically motions for him to get out of the way.

Instead, Sehyoon holds his arms out.

“What are you—are you crazy? Move, I’m not letting you get hurt!”

Sehyoon doesn’t budge. “Same here.”

Byeongkwan pushes his skateboard away and jumps towards him in one swift motion. There’s a resounding crash—one definitely loud enough for Mr. Cue to hear—as it collides with the lockers. Byeongkwan wraps his arms around Sehyoon’s neck and they both hit the floor like shawty at the club, the latter pulling the former down by his waist.

“ _Ow.”_

“You’re an idiot. An absolute, complete _idiot_ ,” Byeongkwan says, his face barely an inch away from Sehyoon’s. 

“You’re welcome.” Sehyoon tries to keep his voice from going up an octave as he feels Byeongkwan’s breath ghost across his neck.

Byeongkwan pushes himself off of Sehyoon’s shoulders and sits up. “You kinda suck at catching me, you know. You didn’t break anything this time, did you?”

“My ass is kinda sore, but everything else is fine. I think.” Speaking of ass, Byeongkwan’s is planted directly on Sehyoon’s crotch, and he’s doing his best not to think about it. (Unfortunately, his best is not enough.)

“It would be a whole lot less sore if you got out of the way. Idiot.” Byeongkwan sticks out his tongue. Sehyoon hates how his mind immediately goes south. This position is not helping him in the slightest.

“I wasn’t about to let you get hurt.” 

“You didn’t seem to have a problem with me getting hurt when you were leaving all those bruises on my legs.” 

“That’s… that’s different. I don’t—I just don’t want to see you cry or anything.”

“I know. That’s why you came, right? You didn’t want to make me sad. I can’t believe you came,” Byeongkwan smiles. He starts caressing Sehyoon’s face, his soft fingertips sending jolts of electricity down his spine. “Thank you.”

Sehyoon sees Mr. Cue jogging over in his peripheral. He’s not surprised, honestly. Everyone else will definitely get into trouble, but he doesn’t have to. This is his chance; he can push Byeongkwan off of him and explain that he didn’t actually mean to be there for him, he was just trying to get his textbook and leave. He can save himself.

Except he can’t. Not while Byeongkwan’s looking at him like that, not while Byeongkwan’s touching him like that, not while Byeongkwan’s smiling at him like that.

“Yeah. That’s why I came.”

* * *

Sehyoon doodles magenta planets and green stars around his notes. It’s not much, but it’s the only way he can relieve his stress as the final bell approaches. By the time it rings, the page looks less like an outline of an essay and a lot more like a psychedelic drawing of a dense galaxy with space debris in the form of random facts about various nineteenth century authors. He stuffs his books into his backpack and heads to room 225, dread and regret hanging above him like angry rainclouds.

Detention. Detention for something he didn’t even mean to do. And he’s sick. What a great way to start off his week. It’s not that he’s mad about his clean record being tarnished; it’s just that if he’s going to ruin it, he might as well do something fun. Like graffiti. At least he would get to experiment with spray painting. But no, he has to serve detention because he got his ass bruised in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He reaches the room and reads the note attached to the door.

_Detention with Mr. Hyungyu Kang, Monday 10/26_

_Students:_

Junhee Park

Donghun Lee

Sehyoon Kim

Byeongkwan Kim

Yuchan Kang

He’s tempted to join a different room. He’d rather be stuck in a classroom with practical strangers than the four people who caused him to be there in the first place. But he’s sure Junhee and Donghun would find a way to drag him back to them, and so he enters. Unsurprisingly, he’s the last one to arrive.

Mr. Kang spins around in his swivel chair in a way that reminds Sehyoon of a villain in a cheesy movie. “Have a seat, Sehyoon,” he says as he gets up. 

Byeongkwan gestures for Sehyoon to sit next to him and he reluctantly obliges, dropping his backpack on the desk and resting his head on it.

“Thirty-two students were apprehended on Saturday. _Thirty-two._ ” Mr. Kang begins pacing around the front of the room. “We’re still discussing what the consequences of their actions should be, but we’ve decided to start out with detention for every student involved. You five will most likely serve the lightest sentences—”

“You’d think we murdered someone,” Byeongkwan whispers.

Right now, Sehyoon wishes that that were true and that someone was him.

“—mostly because you don’t have any similar transgressions on your records. In fact, I thought someone made a mistake when I saw some of your names on the list. Can each of you tell me what brought you to do something like this?”

Yuchan raises his hand. “I wanted to cheer on my friends. And there was pizza. With a stuffed crust. Oh, and extra cheese. And really good tomato sauce. Someone brought cookies, too. You know, the crumbly store-bought ones with frosting and sprinkles? I had at least four of them. I think there were—”

“Alright, Yuchan,” Mr. Kang interrupts. “What about you, Junhee?”

“My friends asked me to be there for them, and I told them I would. I was keeping the promise I made. Plus, I would be a hypocrite if I didn’t show up.”

Sehyoon tries to ignore Junhee’s pointed stare.

“I thought it would be fun. I knew some of my friends were gonna be there, too.” Byeongkwan turns to smile at Sehyoon and scoots his chair a little closer. “Even though one of them was a little late.”

“I made a bet with some people and I wasn’t in the mood to lose fifty dollars,” Donghun bluntly says.

Junhee and Yuchan look at him incredulously.

“Okay, fine. I wanted to hang out with my friends, too.”

“I think I’m seeing a pattern here,” Mr. Kang says. “And you, Sehyoon?”

“I… I didn’t… I was just…” He erupts into a coughing fit. 

_I was just getting a textbook from my locker. I didn’t break in. I was helping Ms. Lia with her art class earlier. Her usual assistant was out and she asked me to fill in. I didn’t want to stay for Byeongkwan._

Byeongkwan tilts his head and looks at him imploringly, his lashes fluttering. _Are you good?_ he mouths, patting his back.

Sehyoon’s heart skips a beat. “I wanted to be there for By—for my friends,” he manages to stutter. “The same as everyone else, I guess.”

Mr. Kang leans against the wall. “I think this is a matter of assessing the situation and making the right decision. I get that you wanted to support each other, but breaking the rules wasn’t worth it. You have to recognize when it’s best to stay away.”

That’s exactly what Sehyoon said. If Junhee had listened to him, he wouldn’t be in this mess right now.

“I completely understand, sir,” Junhee says, and Sehyoon tries not to throttle him.

Mr. Kang checks his watch. “Now, I have to go check up on the others. As you can imagine, not too many of us teachers want to stay after hours to watch a room of students do nothing, so I’m stuck covering three rooms. I’m trusting you to stay quiet for thirty minutes.”

As soon as he leaves, Yuchan leaps up from his chair and scrambles over to Byeongkwan. 

“Best of three?”

“Best of three.”

A few quick rounds of rock-paper-scissors later, Byeongkwan runs to the swivel chair, plops himself down, and starts spinning.

“Dang it,” Yuchan sighs, resolving to sit on a desk instead.

Donghun blinks. “Kindergarteners are less childish than you.”

“You’re just a grandpa. You’re so crotchety. And _ancient,"_ Yuchan says.

“I’m not that old," Donghun complains. "I'm still seventeen.”

“Okay, boomer.” Byeongkwan grabs the blackboard ledge to steady himself and spins in the other direction.

**oceanhee**

**Today** 3:11 PM

_So when Kang says it, you completely understand_

_But when I say it, I’m being a bad friend_

_You finally admitted that you’re friends_

_This is progress_

Sehyoon lifts his head to glare at Junhee, who grins in reply. 

“So, what are we gonna do while he’s out?” Yuchan asks. “Truth or dare? Never have I ever? Ooh, I know! Twenty-one questions!”

“Mr. Kang told us to be quiet, Chan,” Junhee says. “I’d rather we not get into more trouble.”

Yuchan crosses his arms. “Well, we can play a quiet round of twenty-one questions. Since there are five of us, we can all ask everyone one question each, and we'll decide who asks the twenty-first one later.”

Byeongkwan spins his way over to him. “What happens if we don’t answer the question?”

“Then you owe whoever asked the question a favor.”

“That sounds interesting. I’m in.”

“Sure.”

“Fine.”

“Yoon, are you playing?”

Sehyoon gives Byeongkwan a singular tired nod. 

“Great! I’ll go first,” Yuchan says, clasping his hands together. “Hold on, let me think of a question… hmm… oh, here’s a good one! Donghun, if you had to, where would you get a piercing or tattoo?”

Junhee makes a small panicked noise and his eyes suddenly become fixated on the floor.

“An eyebrow piercing,” Donghun answers, seemingly amused by Junhee’s agitation. “And maybe a stomach tattoo.”

Junhee whimpers.

“My turn,” Donghun says. “Junhee, why do you look so stressed?”

“Is that your question?”

“Yep.”

“Can’t you choose any—”

“Answer the question, Jun. Unless you want to do me a favor.”

Byeongkwan and Yuchan gag.

“Because you would look… nice. Very nice. With a tattoo or a piercing. Or both,” Junhee sputters.

“Just nice, or—”

“If you keep this up, I’m ending the game,” Yuchan says, covering his ears with his hands. “Just ask somebody something.”

“And please keep it family friendly, there’s a child present.” Byeongkwan points at Yuchan with a piece of chalk before spinning around to continue doodling on the blackboard.

Sehyoon looks up and sees several poorly-drawn pastel cats.

They’re cute. _He’s_ cute. Annoyingly so.

“Okay, umm… Chan. Who do you think would’ve won the skating competition if Mr. Cue didn’t break it up?” Junhee asks.

Yuchan mulls it over. “Probably Mark Tuan. Definitely not Kwan, he was too busy moping. You should’ve been there, Sehyoon. I thought he was gonna cry over you. It was like you guys broke up or something.”

Sehyoon really should’ve ditched detention. 

“I wasn’t _moping—”_

“You kinda were,” Donghun says. “Junhee has the evidence on his camera roll. You looked like you were on the verge of tears the whole car ride. I was ready to give you some tissues.”

Byeongkwan rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Next question.”

“I’ve always been wondering about this, Sehyoon.” Yuchan slips off of his desk and crouches to squint at him—specifically, his legs. “Do you own any bottoms other than sweatpants? Jeans? Shorts? Jorts? Byeongkwan? _Hotpants?”_

Sehyoon nearly falls off of his chair and Byeongkwan narrowly avoids spinning into the wall.

Junhee presses his lips in a tight line, barely containing his laughter. “I think that part in the middle was a bit much.” 

“Yeah, what kind of loser owns jorts?” Donghun teases.

Sehyoon pouts.

**ding dong you are wrong**

**Today** 3:16 PM

_Jean shorts are great_

_You’re missing out_

_Keep on telling yourself that_

_:(_

“Forget I said that part,” Yuchan laughs. “Seriously though, do you own any regular pants or shorts? ‘Cause I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear anything that goes above your ankles.”

Sehyoon nods and hopes he doesn’t push further into the topic.

“Ha! Pay up, Chan,” Byeongkwan smirks.

Yuchan reluctantly empties out his pockets and hands over a wad of dollar bills. 

Sehyoon wishes he could say he's surprised his crush placed bets on the contents of his closet.

“Your turn,” Yuchan says. “Make it interesting.”

Sehyoon attempts to speak but nothing comes out. He tries again and produces a tiny squeak before shaking his head and motioning for someone else to go. 

_I lost my voice_ , he mouths.

“You… You brought the noise?” Junhee guesses.

“No, I think it was something about a choice,” Yuchan says.

“He lost his voice,” Donghun mutters, facepalming. “He’s trying to say he lost his voice.”

A lightbulb flickers on above Byeongkwan’s head. 

“Here, just write your question on the board.” He extends his hand towards him, a piece of chalk in his palm. 

_Thanks,_ Sehyoon mouths, rubbing his throat as he walks up to the blackboard.

Byeongkwan

Why do you always smile with your mouth closed?

Byeongkwan stops pushing himself off the wall and his chair spins around more and more slowly until it makes one final rotation, leaving him facing Sehyoon. “What?”

Sehyoon shrugs and underlines the question, his chalk squeaking against the board.

Why do you always smile with your mouth closed?

“But I don’t always smile with—I don’t—I… Do I? Do I really?” Byeongkwan mumbles, oddly quiet.

A few seconds of unbearably tense silence follow.

“Huh. I never noticed,” Yuchan says, scratching his head. “He’s right. You don’t really smile with your teeth.”

“That’s because… because… how am I supposed to answer that? I don’t—I can’t—”

Donghun raises his eyebrows. “You don’t have an answer?”

“I—No. I don’t… I’m not answering.” Dejection flashes across his face for a fraction of a second. Sehyoon looks around to see if anyone noticed, but it seems like no one else did. Maybe he just imagined it.

“That means you have to do him a _favor_ ~” Yuchan sings, indiscreetly winking at Sehyoon. “Whatever he wants, as long as it’s appropriate. Or it matches his definition of ‘appropriate.’”

Sehyoon’s eyes widen as Byeongkwan gets up and walks over to him, almost like a cat stalking its prey. Byeongkwan leans in until their noses are almost touching.

“Whatever you want, Yoon.” Byeongkwan drapes his arms around his shoulders. 

Sehyoon backs up against the blackboard and shakes his head, refusing to make eye contact.

“We can hang out at your house and watch some movies. I’ll make you some tea for that sore throat of yours. Unless you have something else in mind, of course.” Byeongkwan says, his lips right next to his ear and his fingers brushing across his neck. Sehyoon’s glad he isn’t able to speak or else he would tell Byeongkwan to exchange his fingers for his teeth.

“Oooh, like Netflix and chill?” Yuchan asks.

Junhee rubs his temples. “ _Chan.”_

“Netflix and chill,” Byeongkwan repeats. “Would you like that?”

Sehyoon audibly gulps.

Byeongkwan laughs. “Don’t worry, I’m kidding. Jeez, you’re so serious.”

It’s too much. All of it is too much. Sehyoon can feel his self-control dissolving. He can feel his thirst drowning him. He hates how every instance of contact affects him more than it should—how pure, undeniable _want_ flows through his veins. He can’t do this to himself; he can’t do this to Byeongkwan. He can’t let himself be friends with him when all he feels is guilt. He can’t let Byeongkwan be friends with someone when they want something more. He can’t pretend that he only wants a nice, pleasant, platonic relationship. He can’t lie to him like this. Byeongkwan doesn’t deserve a friend like him. Byeongkwan deserves people like Junhee, Donghun, and Yuchan—people who wouldn’t ruin their friendships over dumb feelings. He has to stop this before it’s too late.

Mr. Kang’s advice from earlier echoes in his mind.

 _I think this is a matter of assessing the situation and making the right decision._ _You have to recognize when it’s best to stay away._

Sehyoon lightly pushes Byeongkwan off of him and turns to write on the board.

After the other parts of the skating competition,

Byeongkwan’s eyes brighten for a brief moment before Sehyoon completes the message, his hand moving across the board as quickly as possible. 

never talk to me again.

Byeongkwan’s expression contorts. “Ha, ha, very funny. C’mon, what’s your real favor?” he asks, his voice wavering.

Yuchan laughs nervously. “You’re kidding, right? You have to be.”

Donghun stares at him, looking exactly like a kicked puppy. “You don’t really mean that.”

“That’s obviously not your real favor, Sehyoon, so tell us what you really want.” Junhee’s tone is icy.

**It’s my real favor.**

“Oh.” Byeongkwan blinks back tears, his bottom lip trembling. “I, um, I have to go to the bathroom, so if Mr. Kang comes back, tell him I’m there.”

He pushes the door open and runs down the hallway, and Sehyoon can’t help but feel like he maybe made the _wrong_ decision.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh shoot, this chapter’s almost 9k. Sorry for ending with angst (oops). I guess you’ll just have to stick around for the next chapter. And the next one. And the next one. :)))) Thanks for reading, choice~ (I also drew the pictures in this chapter, and they were drawn a month before the picture last chapter so that's why the quality kinda dropped oof) (also I drew them on my phone and not my ipad so that’s another reason) (they're from december, lord jesus help me)


	4. Slowly Dying Out Without Your Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 3~ it’s sad boi hours for Yoon~~~
> 
> Also tysm for the lovely comments, the last time I tried writing fanfiction before CM(IYCTI) was November 2017 and I'm so glad to be here again TwT (y'all are legit making me cry jksdhkjdf)

“He really needs to stop forgetting his shit,” Sehyoon sighs to himself.

**oceanhee**

_Hey, did you get my shin guards yet?_

_Can’t you just get them on Monday_

_I have a game tomorrow_

_It would be a shame if I couldn’t play because of a pair of shin guards_

_Jjtrsrdhtyeuvivytdc_

_Fine_

With great reluctance, Sehyoon begins his journey to the locker room. He hates everything about going there—the twisting hallways; the odor of sweat mixed with yesterday’s lunch; the dim lighting; the unshakeable, inexplicable feeling that he’s being followed. He can’t remember if it’s three right turns then two left turns or three left turns then two right turns. Maybe it’s two right turns then three left turns. Or it could be two left turns then three right turns. He chooses the second option and hopes for the best.

Several long-forgotten closets line the corridor he turns into and at the end of it lies a graffitied staircase leading up. He has no recollection of ever seeing this part of the school before. He turns back to try again (he’s 79% sure he had it right the first time).

_Tap. Tap._

Someone's walking down the stairs. There’s a good chance that they know the layout a lot better than Sehyoon does, so he might as well ask them for help.

“Excuse me, can you tell me where the locker room is?”

As he turns around, his eyes land on Byeongkwan Kim.

Byeongkwan looks up, frowning. He hops down the steps and almost sprints past him.

Sehyoon grabs his arm. “I’m—Please, I need your help. I’m lost.”

Byeongkwan looks away and tries to pry himself from Sehyoon’s grasp.

“I’m sorry about what I said. I didn’t mean it. I wasn’t thinking straight. I just... I wasn't thinking when I did what I did,” Sehyoon says. “The thing is... I like—Byeongkwan, I like you.”

Byeongkwan stops struggling. 

“I really, _really_ like you,” Sehyoon continues. “You’re pretty and you’re considerate and you’re so incredibly invasive and I love that. You’re aggravating in the best way. I only wanted you to stay away from me because I didn’t want to ruin our friendship. I know we haven’t been friends for too long, but you mean so much to me. I can’t stop thinking about you, even when we’re apart.”

“Oh.”

“I'm sorry. I know you don't feel the same way, but I needed to tell you the truth.” Sehyoon scratches the nape of his neck and lets out an awkward laugh. “I probably messed up my chances of us ever talking again, didn’t I?”

Byeongkwan hesitates. “No, not really.”

“Huh?”

“I—”

Byeongkwan’s response is cut off by loud whooping from above.

“Crap, that’s the football team,” Sehyoon says. “You have to cheer for the game today, right? Sorry, I didn’t realize I was holding you back.”

“You're not holding me back. I’ve got thirty minutes to kill, actually.”

The team starts descending the stairs and Byeongkwan drags Sehyoon into one of the closets.

“I’m really glad you said all that,” he whispers, pulling him closer by the front of his sweatshirt. “You know, you’re cute when you’re flustered. You can’t imagine how seeing you all riled up over me made me feel.”

Byeongkwan presses his lips against his, making Sehyoon whine and wrap his arms around his waist. Sehyoon’s hands snake up to his hair and he pulls his head back to deepen the kiss.

“I can’t begin to describe how badly I’ve always wanted to shove my tongue down your throat,” he murmurs.

“Then just show me.”

And so he does. Sehyoon pushes Byeongkwan against the wall and pins his hands above his head.

“Mmm, _Sehyoon_ ,” he moans and bucks his hips forward, desperate for friction. He tilts his head up, exposing his neck.

“You like that?” Sehyoon brushes his lips across his jawline.

“Yes. _Please_.”

Sehyoon leaves a trail of rough kisses down his neck before sinking his teeth into a spot right above his collarbone. 

“Ah, f-fuck, Yoon.” Byeongkwan inhales sharply. 

Sehyoon begins sucking on his smooth skin, red marks blossoming wherever his mouth travels. Byeongkwan’s mewling only makes him bite down harder and Sehyoon barely suppresses a moan as he feels him shove his knee between his thighs.

“You’re so needy.” Sehyoon lets go of Byeongkwan’s wrists to fumble with the zipper of his jeans. 

Byeongkwan whispers something.

“Hmm? What was that?”

Byeongkwan repeats himself, but Sehyoon still can’t make out a single word.

“You’ll have to speak up, baby boy.”

“Wake up, Sehyoon,” Byeongkwan says, his voice not quite sounding like his own.

“What?” 

“Oh my God, you’re having that dream again, aren’t you? Hey, Sehyoon, wake up. We’ll be there in a couple of minutes. You have to wake up,” Byeongkwan sighs.

* * *

Sehyoon’s eyes flutter open as Junhee shakes his shoulder. He’s clutching his backpack to his chest and his lips are attached to the main pocket. Given how damp it is, he must’ve really been going at it. He wipes his mouth and pushes his backpack away, blushing.

“What… what happened?” he mumbles. 

Junhee shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You were giggling about him in your sleep.”

“About who?” 

“You know who.”

“I had a dream about Voldemort?” Sehyoon asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Try again.”

“I don’t know, who else would I be hav—oh. Him.” 

“Yeah. Him. _Byeongkwan_.”

Sehyoon flinches at the sound of his name. There’s a certain edge to his voice, reminiscent of a fractured window pane on the verge of falling apart.

_Crack._

“Since when have you been having these dreams?”

“A few days ago, after the other parts of the skating competition. The ones at M Countdown.”

_Crack._

Junhee rakes his fingers through his hair. “You have to stop doing this,” he says, his voice hollow. 

“Doing what?”

_Crack._

“You have to stop trying to run away from your problems.”

“I’m not running away from my problems.” Sehyoon crosses his arms and looks out the window. “I’m solving them.”

_Shatter._

Junhee’s eye twitches and he tightens his grip on the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white. “Is this really your idea of solving your problems? Heartlessly breaking off your friendships without any kind of warning? Dissing someone who just wants to talk to you? Being rude because you’re scared of being near him?”

“It’s for my sake and his,” Sehyoon replies. “I’m better off without him, and he’s better off without me. It’s as simple as that.”

“You really think this is for his sake? You really think you’re making everything better for him? You really think you’re making everything better for _yourself?_ Because you’re not. You’re not solving anything. No matter how hard you shove him away, no matter how much you try to kick him out of your life, you still love him,” Junhee laughs bitterly.

“I know, it’s just—”

“No, you _don’t_ know,” Junhee interrupts. “You don’t get it. You can’t choose whether or not you love someone. You’re not some machine who can turn his feelings on and off based on convenience. You love him, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

He parks his car and Sehyoon tries to push the door open. It doesn’t budge.

“Let me out.”

Junhee ignores him. “It doesn’t matter what you do to avoid him. You can’t force yourself to get rid of your feelings, so just let yourself enjoy spending time with him. There’s no point in wasting the rest of high school telling yourself that being miserable is a better alternative to being awkward.”

“Unlock the door, Jun.”

“If you allow this to continue, one of you will break. And I won’t be the one picking up all the pieces when you do.”

“ _Unlock the door, Jun.”_

“As much as it hurts to hear, he doesn’t like you that way, and you can’t keep waiting until that changes. I can’t promise you that he’ll like you eventually, but even so, the most you can do right now is accept his friendship. Don’t push down your feelings, but don’t let them control your decisions, either. Just try, at the very least. If you won’t do it for yourself, then do it for Byeong—” 

“ _Junhee.”_ Sehyoon takes a shaky breath. “ _Let me out of your fucking car already.”_

Junhee stares at him—the silent tears rolling down his face, his hands balled into trembling fists, his bottom lip bleeding from biting it too hard. It’s moments like this that make Sehyoon feel like the world has shifted off its axis. They’re glitches in his robotic exterior; they’re instances of vulnerability that somehow slip through the cracks—instances that are never meant to be shown to anyone. Not even his friends.

“He still wants to be friends with you, you know that? Even after what you did.”

With that final sentiment, Junhee unlocks the door.

Sehyoon scrambles out of his car and half-runs into school, not bothering to wait for him to retrieve his drawstring bag from the backseat. Never has Sehyoon been more eager to get his cup of saccharine, overpriced coffee, the only thing that can keep Byeongkwan from haunting his dreams with his dumb pretty face and his dumb fake love that he could never feel in real life. 

As per usual, Donghun is leaning against his locker with his coffee tray, complaining about something or other to Yuchan.

“Hey, guys, thanks for the coffee,” Sehyoon mutters, drying the last of his tears with his sleeve. 

Donghun’s head snaps up and Yuchan falls silent.

“Uh, good morning to you too.” Sehyoon reaches for the larger of the two remaining cups, prompting Donghun to yank the tray away.

“It’s not yours,” he says coldly.

Yuchan bites his lip and looks away.

“What?” Sehyoon takes a look at his—or rather, what should be his—cup of coffee. Instead of his name, the initials _BK_ are scribbled onto its side in black ink. “I paid you back the last time, where’s—”

“I meant what I said.” Donghun looks as if he’s ready to dump his coffee (which is more like milk with caffeine shots than coffee, honestly) on his head. “Sorry, but I don’t buy coffee for assholes.”

“That’s kind of shitty, even for you.”

“Don’t you dare talk to me about being shitty. Not after the complete bullcrap you pulled,” Donghun snaps. “He just wants to be friends with you. Why the fuck did you do that to him?”

“It’s _my_ social life. I should get to choose who I’m friends with. And I’m choosing not to be friends with him,” Sehyoon says.

“Look at me. I want you to look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t want to be his friend. Tell me you find him annoying and rude and intolerable. Go on, _tell me_.” Donghun narrows his eyes.

“I don’t want—I don’t—I—I…”

“That’s what I thought.” Donghun shoves his coffee back in the tray and takes Yuchan’s arm. 

As he’s being dragged away, Yuchan turns to frown at Sehyoon. “You messed up.”

It’s fine. It’s fine. It’s all fucking _fine._ Sehyoon can go one morning without coffee; he’s not a weak-ass caffeine-dependent bitch like Donghun. Screw Donghun and his coffee. Screw Junhee, too for making him cry. He should be allowed to make his own choices without being harassed by his friends, goddammit. Leave it to them to get pissy over something that’s none of their business.

At least neither of them is in his first period calculus class, and that fact makes him look forward to it (well, almost) until he remembers who _is_ in his first period calculus class.

Fortunately, he isn’t there when Sehyoon arrives. He hopes he won’t be at school for the rest of the week. Maybe he caught the stomach bug that’s been going around like Eunsuh did. Sehyoon scribbles on his hand in black pen until it looks like he fisted Satan, determined to keep himself from falling asleep and having yet another dream about a certain person.

Class was supposed to start three minutes ago, but the teacher is nowhere to be seen. He’s not surprised in the slightest; she’s hasn’t shown up early once this school year. He rests his head on his desk. It wouldn’t kill him to take a short nap. It’s not like he’ll have a dream in only a few minutes.

A familiar, comforting wave of fatigue washes over him, but before it can crash, someone drops their books on the desk across from him. He rubs his eyes and looks up.

“I’m sorry, did I wake y—” Byeongkwan catches himself. “Sorry, I forgot about that. I’ll stop talking now.”

Sehyoon pulls his backpack in front of his face so that he doesn’t have to look at him and screws his eyes shut.

_Sleep. Go to sleep. Fall asleep, you dumb fuck._

Byeongkwan slides his cup of coffee across his desk to Sehyoon.

Sehyoon opens his eyes and pushes the coffee—it looks like he’s finally trading in his usual hypothermia-inducing iced americanos for normal ones—back to him. “Thanks, but I don't like americanos," he lies. In all honesty, he doesn't mind them, but he doesn't want Byeongkwan to give up his coffee for him. "Keep it.”

Byeongkwan’s face falls but he stubbornly repeats the action.

“Don’t make me do this,” Sehyoon whispers, pushing the coffee back again.

Byeongkwan looks him dead in the eye as he picks up the cup, forcefully sets it down on Sehyoon’s desk, and moves his textbooks to make sure he can’t give it back. 

Sehyoon sighs in defeat and takes a sip, wishing he had held out a little longer. His eyes widen as the coffee touches his tongue.

Oh.

It’s his favorite order.

It’s exactly his favorite order. It’s a large caffè mocha with 2% milk and whipped cream and chocolate powder and just the right amount of sugar.

He takes another tentative sip before taking off the lid and downing the drink with frightening speed. He could be wrong, but he swears he hears a muffled giggle.

“Thank you,” Sehyoon says after emptying the cup and licking the whipped cream from his lips.

Byeongkwan doesn’t acknowledge him. Instead, he props up his calculus textbook on his desk and stares at it intently.

Sehyoon takes a deep breath and drums his fingers on the sides of the cup. “Hey, I want to talk to you about something.”

Byeongkwan turns the page.

“I know you can hear me.”

The corners of Byeongkwan’s mouth twitch as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his AirPods.

“You’re not reading anything. Your textbook is upside down.”

Byeongkwan reluctantly shuts his textbook and looks up.

“About the favor from last week. I didn’t... I don’t—”

The calculus teacher bursts into the room and dumps her belongings on her desk. “Come on, get your homework out. We’re already almost halfway through the semester. You guys should know what to do by now.”

The rest of the period is spent in awkward silence, Sehyoon struggling to avoid making eye contact with Byeongkwan.

After class ends and everyone else heads out of the room, Byeongkwan gets up and casually puts a sticky note on Sehyoon’s forehead. Sehyoon quirks an eyebrow as he takes it off. The message is simple:

**_?_ **

“It wasn’t important. Forget about it,” he says, aggressively scratching the nape of his neck.

Byeongkwan squints at him as if he’s trying to read a book written in **6 pt bold orange Chalkboard SE highlighted in neon yellow.**

“I forgot what I was going to say, anyways,” Sehyoon adds. He tries to ignore the fact that his lies are becoming more obvious by the second. “And I don’t really have a reason to talk to you, either, so it was probably something irrelevant.”

Byeongkwan scrunches his nose and pulls up the collar of his turtleneck.

“The coffee was nice, but I still don’t—” Sehyoon attempts to keep his voice steady. “Leave me alone, alright? Even if I did remember what I was going to say... It wouldn't really matter. We're not friends. I don't have anything to say to you.”

Byeongkwan walks over to the whiteboard and picks up a red Expo® marker.

**_LIAR_ **

Sehyoon stares at the word on the board as Byeongkwan silently leaves the classroom. As soon as he’s gone, he erases it with his sleeve and turns to leave too until he remembers the empty coffee cup sitting on his desk.

He holds it over the trash can, Byeongkwan’s initials shining under the harsh fluorescent lights.

Sehyoon takes it with him. He doesn’t know exactly what it is, but something inside him won’t let him throw it out.

* * *

As much as he hates to admit it, he misses him.

A little bit. Just a little bit.

There’s a tiny, microscopic hole in his heart where Byeongkwan should be. The hole’s barely noticeable, but Sehyoon feels it grow every time he sees him. He has to remind himself that Byeongkwan won’t touch him or talk to him anymore, that he won’t try to hug him or ruffle his hair or call him nicknames. He doesn’t hate being away from him, it’s just… different. It’s weird to have his personal space be intact. It’s almost uncomfortable, really. It feels like Byeongkwan pricked him with a needle and now he’s slowly, slowly bleeding out after pulling it out from himself.

Okay, maybe a lot bit.

Byeongkwan and Yuchan walk into the cafeteria, heading straight for Sehyoon’s table. Just as he thinks they’re going to put their backpacks down, Byeongkwan pulls Yuchan to another table with Donghun and a few other choir kids and cheerleaders.

Junhee points his fork at them. “Are you planning on doing something about that, or are you going to keep torturing yourself?”

“I’m not torturing myself, and I don’t see what there is for me to do.” Sehyoon absentmindedly stabs a hole in the peel-off lid of his yogurt cup.

Junhee looks over at Yuchan and nods. Yuchan nods back.

“What was that?” Sehyoon asks.

Junhee shrugs and continues eating his macaroni and cheese. “I’m confirming something.”

“Care to explain?”

Junhee’s eyes shine with mirth. “Hey, you have a free period after lunch, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Sehyoon replies. “You wanna tell me what’s going on with Yuchan?” 

“Nope,” Junhee says, popping the P.

For the first time in the twelve years Sehyoon’s known him, Junhee stays silent for the rest of lunch. It’s not like he’d ever complain about that, but still, he can’t shake the feeling that he’s hiding something. 

Sehyoon decides not to say anything more about his strange behavior. A lunch period without Junhee talking should be cherished—a lunch period without him whining about Donghun being mean to him, or Sehyoon’s lack of social skills, or his duties as the student body vice president, or how no one on the soccer team ever listens to him, or how strawberries are obviously superior to every other fruit and he’s appalled that there are people who think otherwise. And besides, if it involved something truly important, Junhee would tell him. That fact eases his nerves, if only somewhat.

It’s impossible not to notice Junhee giving Yuchan two thumbs up as Sehyoon gets up to throw out his waste. Maybe it’s some weird soccer thing he doesn’t understand. They have a game later that day; that has to be it. Student athletes are always doing freaky, cryptic shit like this, anyways.

Sehyoon would head to the courtyard with Donghun during his free period like he usually does, but he knows without a shadow of a doubt that he would start berating him about his life choices again. Instead, he decides to take refuge in the library, where no one can call him an asshole or make him feel guilty.

The hallway is deserted, save for a few stragglers who couldn’t care less about being late for class. After seven minutes, Sehyoon is completely alone—well, mostly alone. He can hear someone walking behind him. They’re remarkably quiet—he wouldn’t have noticed them if one of their zippers hadn’t come undone.

“Dang it,” they say softly.

He holds his breath as he looks behind him to see who it is, silently chanting _please don’t be Byeongkwan, please don’t be Byeongkwan, please don’t be Byeongkwan_ to himself. He catches a glimpse of a half-open bright yellow backpack disappearing into an adjacent hallway and lets out a sigh of relief. It’s probably some dumb freshman on their way to meet their friends so they can ditch class together. It’s not Byeongkwan. There’s nothing to worry about.

He resumes his route to the library, glad that he can finally get away from his friends for an hour or so. He doesn’t hate them, but he wishes they would find something to talk about other than Byeongkwan. At this point, he’s desperate to hear about any other topic—and he means _any_ other topic. Hell, he’d rather sit through Donghun and Junhee arguing with each other for two hours about whether mint chocolate chip ice cream is good or not than a conversation where Byeongkwan’s name is mentioned even once. Can’t they let Sehyoon forget about him? Can’t they let him forget about how nice his hugs feel, or how pretty his eyes are, whether they’re warm brown or sky blue, or how cute he looks when he’s concentrating on a calculus problem, or how his face lights up when he does a complicated cheer routine without any mistakes, or how he took the time to find out Sehyoon’s favorite coffee order down to the type of milk, or how caring he is, even though Sehyoon’s done jack shit for him, or how—

Fuck. Maybe he does kinda hate his friends after all. And himself.

Sehyoon takes his earbuds out of his pocket, untangles them, shoves them into his ears, and puts his playlist on shuffle.

_“Baby, baby, geudaeneun caramel macchiato~”_

Caramel macchiato. Coffee. Mochas and iced americanos. _Byeongkwan_.

Skip.

_“When I was five, I fell in love~”_

Musical theater? Junhee probably added it when Sehyoon wasn’t looking. Whatever, it’s fine. It’s not that bad, to be honest. He finds himself humming along for around a minute, until—

_“So thank you, math, for being there to bring me joy~ And thank you, math, ‘cause now you’ve brought me this cute boy~”_

Math. Cute boy. Calculus. _Byeongkwan_.

Skip.

_“You’re on the phone with your girlfriend, she’s upset~”_

Oh. Taylor Swift. It’s been a long time since he’s heard this one.

 _“It’s a typical Tuesday night~”_ he quietly sings. _“I’m listening to the kind of music she doesn’t like, and she’ll never know your story like I do~ But she wears short skirts, I wear sneakers, she’s cheer captain~”_

Cheer captain. _Byeongkwan._

Sehyoon freezes in the middle of the hallway.

Skip.

_“I’m just looking out the window and it’s cold outside~”_

This one isn’t really his taste, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Byeongkwan, so he keeps on listening.

_“And I'm trying not to look a row behind me, 'cause Jason's got his ass on the glass~”_

Jason. Ass. _Byeongkwan_.

Skip.

_“Jason.”_

Jason. _Byeongkwan_. 

Skip.

_“Jason~”_

_Byeongkwan._

Skip.

_“Jason~~”_

_Skip._

Sehyoon takes out his phone, swipes through Spotify, and deletes every song by Jason Derulo. Even his playlist won’t shut up about Byeongkwan. He turns off his music and removes his earbuds. Why is everyone and everything so dead-set on forcing Sehyoon to think about him?

He picks up the pace until he’s speed-walking through the hallways. Where’s the library, where’s the library, _where’s—_

There’s someone behind him again. He can barely hear them, but they’re definitely there; their sneakers squeak ever so slightly with every other step they take. They seem to be matching his speed, too—they haven’t gotten any quieter in the thirty seconds Sehyoon’s been aware of their presence. He starts jogging to see if he can leave them behind, but there’s still that rhythmic, barely audible _squeak squeak squeak._

He’s being followed. There’s no doubt about it. But the question is _who_ —Junhee, Byeongkwan, and Yuchan all have classes, and Donghun wouldn’t have the patience for something like this. As far as he’s aware, no one else has any incentive to stalk him, unless they want to make him the victim of some dumb prank. But, unpopular as he is, people know who his friends are—if anyone tries to mess with him, they can expect to be killed in cold blood by the next morning. Okay, maybe not _killed_ , but sternly ordered to apologize. Same difference. Either way, they’ve got his back. He’s fine. He’s okay. He’s safe.

His stalker’s sneakers squeak particularly loudly and Sehyoon pauses before finally turning around.

The hallway is empty. He’s the only one there.

He’s ready to dismiss the experience as a side effect of his anxiety until he notices something on the floor a few feet away. He walks over to take a closer look. It’s an enamel pin—a golden smiling sun. He’s seen it before, but he has no clue whatsoever as to where.

**oceanhee**

**Today** 12:42 PM

_Hey_

_Whose pin is this_

_I know you’re on your phone, you posted selfies on instagram 20 seconds ago_

_Ktdruvtrsxutrvud_

_Answer_

_Who does it belong to_

_:]_

_:///_

Sehyoon leaves the pin where it is and continues walking. The squeaking is gone and the only noise in the hallway is the rustling of his books in his backpack. 

It’s quiet.

Too quiet.

He resists the urge to look over his shoulder every time he turns into a new hallway. He’s only seventeen; he’s too young to let his paranoia get the best of him. He’s alone, he _knows_ he’s alone, so why does he feel like he isn’t?

“Oh, hey! Uh, why aren’t you wearing—”

_“Shhh!”_

“Okay, damn, I’m sorry I asked.”

“I’m trying to—argh, never mind, just stop talking.”

Sehyoon hears one pair of footsteps walking away—which means his stalker is right around the corner.

“I know you’re there,” he says.

His stalker remains silent.

“I could definitely take you on,” he continues. The statement is more of a poor attempt at self-reassurance than a threat. “I’m pretty strong. If you want to hurt me, you’re gonna have a lot of trouble with that. Probably.”

Still nothing.

“I know how to use nunchucks,” he adds before remembering that he doesn’t have a pair of nunchucks with him. Hopefully his stalker doesn’t know that. “Do me a favor and go away. I’m not in the mood.”

Sehyoon’s pencil case falls out of his backpack.

“Ah, shit.”

He takes off his backpack and bends over to pick it up when he feels someone jump onto his back. Just as he’s about to scream bloody murder, his stalker—his _assailant_ , actually—slips a bandanna over his face, effectively blindfolding him and muffling his strangled shrieking. He does his best to shake his assailant off of him, but they refuse to let go. They pull Sehyoon’s arms behind his back, unwrap their legs from his waist, and drag him into a classroom before he can think to fight back.

So this is how it all ends, huh? Murdered in a dark, empty high school classroom. On a Friday, no less—he’d rather be killed on a Monday, when he wouldn’t mind it too much. He wonders what the method will be. Suffocation? Strangulation? Stabbing? It can’t be anything he doesn’t partially deserve. At least being dead will ensure he won’t see Byeongkwan for a while. Unless he’s forced to haunt the halls as a ghost. He crosses his fingers and prays the conspiracy theorists are wrong as he’s shoved onto a chair.

“Get on with it,” Sehyoon says.

“What?” His stalker/assailant/soon-to-be-murderer lifts up the bandanna slightly so he can speak clearly.

“I said to get on with it. If you’re gonna kill me, just do it as fast as you can.”

 _“What?!_ I’m not gonna—why would you think I’m going to kill you?!” His stalker/assailant/unfortunately-not-murderer yanks the bandanna off Sehyoon’s face, revealing himself as a lanky redhead with a smiling sun pinned to his jacket—the one and only Yuchan Kang.

Sehyoon shrugs. “It's always the innocent ones. Are you sure you’re not gonna kill me?”

“You sound disappointed.”

“That’s because I am,” Sehyoon replies. “Why else would you kidnap me?”

“I want to talk to you,” Yuchan says. He takes a seat and hugs the back of the chair. “I even took my AP Stats test early so I could skip class and do this.”

“And?”

“And what?” 

“You want to talk to me? That’s _it?_ No extortion, no drug-dealing, no kill—”

“ _Will you forget about—_ Look, if you don’t stop talking about me murdering you, I might actually do it.”

Sehyoon’s eyes light up. “Really?”

“No.”

“If you really just want to talk to me, you could’ve just… you know… _asked_ ,” Sehyoon says flatly.

Yuchan raises his eyebrows. “Would you have said yes?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Would you have said yes?” Yuchan repeats.

“Uh… well…”

_“Would you have said yes?”_

“No.” Sehyoon hangs his head sheepishly.

“I rest my case.”

“I still don’t think you should be kidnapping people, though.”

“It’s a one-time thing,” Yuchan protests. “And I don’t think you should be avoiding Byeongkwan and being an all-around _jerk_ to people. Especially him. Come on, he’s your _friend_.”

“First of all, I’m not being a jerk—”

Yuchan snorts.

“—and second of all,” Sehyoon continues, ignoring his interjection, “he’s not my friend. I don’t—” He stares at the ceiling, wishing it were adorned with plastic glow-in-the-dark stars to distract him from the weight of his words, to let him speak without thinking, to let him lie without caring. The dull stretch of grey makes him feel pain with every syllable of his mistruth. “I don’t want him to be my friend. We weren’t friends, we aren’t friends, and we’ll never be friends.” 

“I know that you don’t want him to be your friend.” 

“You… what?” There’s no way he legitimately thinks Sehyoon is telling the truth—his lie couldn’t be more transparent.

“You want him to be a lot _more_ than your friend, right?” Yuchan grins.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sehyoon says, his words too rushed to be remotely believable.

“I saw your history notebook. You wrote your names together a bunch of times. With hearts.”

Sehyoon begins to sweat. “I can explain.”

“You can try and make as many excuses as you want, but there is no possible platonic, heterosexual explanation for that.”

“It’s a different Byeongkwan,” Sehyoon blurts out.

Yuchan stares at him. “It’s a different Byeongkwan,” he echoes.

“Yep. A different Byeongkwan.”

“This is a mostly-white suburban area and you’re telling me that you know _two_ guys named Byeongkwan.”

“His name is Byeongkwan Park. He’s my penpal. He lives in Korea,” Sehyoon says, nodding like a bobblehead figurine.

It takes one unconvinced look from Yuchan for him to crack.

“Alright, alright, I like Byeongkwan. How could I not? He’s amazing and beautiful and I don’t deserve him and he doesn’t deserve me,” Sehyoon rambles. “I like him. A lot. Byeongkwan Kim, not Byeongkwan Park. I made him up.”

“No kidding.”

Sehyoon looks at him, his eyes shining with desperation. “You can’t tell anyone. Jun’s the only other person who knows.”

Yuchan’s gaze falls to the floor. “Um, the thing is...”

“No,” Sehyoon whispers. “ _No._ You didn’t, tell me you didn’t—”

“I didn’t, and I don’t want to. But I might have to.” Yuchan extends his hand towards him, a pair of red dice sitting in his palm.

Sehyoon frowns. “What’s with the dice?”

“Jun and I want to make a deal with you,” Yuchan explains. “You’ll roll the dice, and if the sum is seven or higher, we’ll stop trying to get you to talk to Kwan.”

“What if it’s lower than seven?” Sehyoon asks. “And what if I don’t accept your deal?”

“We’re telling Hun that you like Kwan.”

“Oh. I expected somethi—wait.” Sehyoon’s eyes widen. “You know Donghun’s terrible at keeping secrets, right? There’s no way he won’t let anything slip.”

“That’s kind of the point.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell Byeongkwan directly?”

“That’s because… because... we would feel guilty.” Yuchan refuses to look him in the eye. “That’s just mean. It’s better if it’s an accident. Besides, there’s the chance that Hun won’t end up telling Kwan you like him.”

“There’s also the chance that my life is going to be ruined because Donghun can’t keep his mouth shut. If it’s lower than seven, I’m screwed,” Sehyoon mutters.

“Not necessarily. If you talk to Kwan, then we won’t say a word about your crush. We’ll give you until next Monday.”

Sehyoon shakes his head and holds out his hand. “I’m sorry, but that’s not gonna happen. Give me the dice. Let’s get this over with.”

Yuchan presses them into his palm. “You might not think so, but I’m sure that you and Kwan are meant to be together, whether platonically or romantically. He misses you and it’s obvious how much you miss him. Even if you win, please reconsider staying away from him.”

Sehyoon tosses the first die onto the desk. Four.

“It looks like the odds are in your favor,” Yuchan says.

Second die. It rolls onto the floor. Sehyoon’s face blanches when it comes to a stop.

“What is it?” Yuchan asks. “I can’t see.”

“One.”

“Four plus one. Five.” Yuchan fails to restrain himself from smiling. “You lost.” 

“You can’t. You _can’t_ —” Sehyoon’s voice falters. “You can’t tell him. You can’t tell Donghun. You don’t understand. Please, Yuchan.”

“Hun will remain completely in the dark as long as you talk to Kwan,” Yuchan says. 

“That won’t happen. You know that won’t happen.”

“That’s on you,” Yuchan replies. “That's your choice to make. I’m sorry, but we made a deal.”

Sehyoon blinks. “This isn’t a deal. This is blackmail. You’re blackmailing me.”

“We’re not blackmailing you, we’re just—”

“You’re using my personal information to get something you want. You’re blackmailing me,” Sehyoon says.

“Okay, we’re blackmailing you,” Yuchan admits. “But only a little bit. Whatever it takes to make you talk to him.” He stares out the window wistfully. “When I first met Byeongkwan, he’d just moved from Korea and things—well, things weren’t exactly great for him. I’ll leave it at that. I told him I’d do anything to make him happy, and if he finds happiness in being with an idiot like you, then I’ll make sure you two stay together.”

“But I don’t make him happy.”

“You’re delusional.”

“Says the person who jumped me, blindfolded me, dragged me into a classroom, blackmailed me, and…” Sehyoon looks down. “...isn’t… wearing… shoes?”

“I took them off since they were too noisy. I’ll bring a better pair next time.”

 _“Next_ _time?”_

“ _If_ there’s a next time,” Yuchan corrects himself. “We’ll see how it goes.”

“If you do this again, I will actually bring my nunchucks to school and use them on you.”

“So be it. Like I said, I’ll do whatever it takes.” Yuchan pauses. “And one day, I hope that you will too.”

* * *

“Don’t forget to feed Carrot,” Eunsuh says, attempting to fasten her sleeping bag together.

“You’ve told me that five times already, I don’t think I need a sixth. Here, you have to roll it tighter.” Sehyoon unrolls the sleeping bag, rerolls it, and fastens the clasp.

“I just don’t want my cat to starve because you’re too busy FaceTiming Junhee about your ex to fill her bowl.”

“He isn’t—how do you know about that?”

“Thirty minutes,” Eunsuh deadpans. “You spent a whole thirty minutes whining about him yesterday.”

“That’s none of your business,” Sehyoon says.

Eunsuh stuffs a bottle of lotion into her duffel bag. “It is too my business. It’s been a while since I’ve heard you talk about anything else.” Her tone softens. “I hate seeing you like this—you’re tearing yourself apart over him. This can’t be healthy.”

“You’re gonna be late. Don’t worry, your cat won’t starve.” Sehyoon hands her the sleeping bag and tries to push her out the door.

Eunsuh purses her lips. “Are you even listening to me? Look, I’m not worried about Carrot anymore, I’m worried about—”

“Mom’s waiting for you.”

“ _Sehyoon—”_

“Bye. Have fun at your sleepover.” He gives her a forced smile and slams the door in her face.

Eunsuh rings the doorbell repeatedly. After ten seconds, she gives up and Sehyoon hears his mom’s car pulling out of the driveway.

Finally, he can wallow in misery without anyone bothering him. As long as his dad doesn’t question why he’s spending his Friday night alone in his room for the third week in a row, he’ll be good to go.

Sehyoon opens up his laptop and pulls out a stack of notebooks, prepared to do his homework for at least a few of his subjects. He starts with calculus. The first three problems are a breeze, but he’s completely lost on the fourth one. And there’s no one he can call for help, except for—

No. He won’t. He can’t.

He skips the problem and tries to get through the rest. He’s on the second to last one when his eyelids begin to droop. Maybe he should take a nap… That’s a good idea… Sleep sounds nice… Really nice…

* * *

He’s awakened by a knock at his door.

“Hey, Sehyoon, your friend came over.”

Sehyoon yawns. “Tell Jun that I’m not in the mood. Or I’m sick.”

“You haven’t been yourself lately,” Mr. Kim says. “If there’s anything you want to talk about, I’m here for you. And it’s not Junhee—it’s that boy who lives down the street. I heard Eunsuh talking about him. Did you break up recently?”

Sehyoon groans and rests his head on his calculus textbook. “Tell him I’m dead.”

“Please come out,” Mr. Kim sighs.

“I’m not straight.”

“I’m being serious. I’ve struggled with relationships, too. I might not be too helpful with, um, _guy troubles,_ but I can give you a few pointers.”

“I don’t need them. There isn’t a relationship to struggle with in the first place,” Sehyoon says.

“From the looks of it, I think there is. He brought flowers—a whole bouquet.”

“Of course he did,” Sehyoon mutters under his breath.

“It’s not like someone waits for you at your doorstep with flowers and chocolate every day. If I were you, I would go downstairs. I think he’s worth giving a chance.”

Sehyoon perks up. “Chocolate?” 

“Yeah, chocolate.”

Sehyoon won’t go downstairs. He won’t give in to everyone else’s wishes, which are more like demands at this point. He won’t rekindle their friendsh—their _acquaintance_ ship ( _not_ friendship, _acquaintance_ ship, he reminds himself, because they weren’t friends), especially after he’s gone through all the trouble of cutting him out of his life. He won’t—

His stomach growls.

Against his better judgement, he shuts his textbook, pushes his chair in, and opens his door.

“It seems like he really knows the way to your heart,” Mr. Kim muses.

“And I wish he didn’t.” Sehyoon removes his hood and attempts to fix his hair. “Uh, do I look alright?”

“You’re fine. Now go and have some fun, Wow. Don’t stay out too late.”

Sehyoon can’t hold back the small smile that forms on his lips. “I won’t.”

With every step, his regret dissipates more and more. By the time his hand wraps around the handle of the front door, he’s grinning from ear to ear. He doesn’t know what it is, but there’s something relieving about finally talking to him again.

“Hi.”

Byeongkwan looks up, a bouquet of orange roses and a white paper bag in his hands. “Hi. I heard about the deal.” He shoves the gifts towards him as if he’s playing a game of hot potato.

Sehyoon stops breathing. “How much do you—How much do you know about it?” he asks, even though the answer is written all over Byeongkwan’s blushing face, engraved in his uncertain voice, and branded in the way he’s rocking back and forth, desperately waving the bouquet and the bag in front of him. His hands tremble as he takes them.

Maybe it isn’t so bad. Maybe he doesn’t know all the details.

“Everything.”

Never mind.

“So you know that I, um, _I_ , I like…?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

A few seconds of silence pass.

“Let’s take a walk,” Byeongkwan offers. He reaches a hand toward Sehyoon’s before realizing that neither of them are free and instead awkwardly links arms with him.

“Okay. Sure. Yep,” Sehyoon says as he stares at their linked arms, preoccupied with the thought of Byeongkwan holding his hand.

Byeongkwan moves to leave the porch with him, but Sehyoon’s Vans® are planted to the beige floorboards. “Hey, aren’t you gonna join me?” 

“Uh, yeah, sorry… I was thinking about something.” 

Byeongkwan pulls him down the steps. “Was that something _me_ , by any chance?” 

“Your hands,” Sehyoon replies and immediately regrets his choice to divulge his thoughts.

“Are they something you think about often?” Byeongkwan wiggles his eyebrows. “Do you think about where you’d like me to put them? Or what you’d like them to touch?” His line of sight wanders downwards.

Maybe going downstairs was a mistake. 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Sehyoon says, flustered, the mental image of Byeongkwan running his hands over his body (and one particular appendage) now seared into his brain.

“Sure, you didn’t. So, how long?” 

Sehyoon almost drops the bouquet. _“What?”_

“How long?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never measured—do people really measure…? It’s definitely over five inches, I think, at least when it’s—uh, when I’m. _You know_. It has to be above average.”

“I was asking about how long you’ve had a crush on me.”

“Oh.”

“Thanks for the information, though. I’m sure it’ll come in handy.”

“...You’re welcome?”

Byeongkwan playfully elbows him. “God, you’re so dirty-minded.”

“You’re one to talk.”

Byeongkwan laughs. “You still haven’t answered my question. How long have you had a crush on me?”

“Since the first day of freshman year,” Sehyoon answers. “It was really easy to fall for you. I’m… I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

“Avoiding you for three years, then being friends with you for a few weeks, then avoiding you for another few weeks. And being weird. And liking you. I’m so sorry for having a crush on you. I know you don’t like me in that way, and I couldn’t—no matter how hard I try, I can’t make myself stop having feelings for you.”

“I’m not gonna lie. You’ve done a lot of things that are worth apologizing for,” Byeongkwan says, “but falling for me isn’t one of them. You should never be sorry about falling in love.”

Sehyoon’s stomach takes the opportunity to growl as loudly as possible.

“There’s chocolate in the bag.” Byeongkwan gestures to said object.

“Uh, I can’t really…” Sehyoon looks down at his hands. “Can you get it for me?”

Byeongkwan takes a piece of cellophane-wrapped chocolate from the white paper bag. “I know a game we can play.”

“What game?”

“Try to unwrap it with your mouth.” Byeongkwan places one end of the wrapper between his teeth and pulls Sehyoon towards him.

“ _Um.”_

Byeongkwan giggles as Sehyoon’s teeth just barely graze the wrapper. “You have to try harder.”

“Do I have to?”

“Do you want to?”

Sehyoon sighs and tries to twist the wrapper open with his teeth again. After a few seconds of maneuvering his face much too close to Byeongkwan’s (and wishing he were still asleep), he manages to get the chocolate into his mouth.

Byeongkwan wraps his arms around Sehyoon’s neck. “Can I have a taste?”

No. No. _No_.

This isn’t happening.

This can’t be happening.

But it is, it _is_ happening, and Byeongkwan’s leaning in, and his lips are four inches away, then three inches, then two inches, then one inch, then half an inch, then—

* * *

Sehyoon jolts awake, drenched in cold sweat, and looks around. He’s at his desk, his pencil teetering on the edge and a puddle of drool on his textbook.

He was asleep. His dad never woke him up. Byeongkwan never came over. It was a dream. It was all a dream.

Sehyoon only becomes aware of his tears as they fall onto an old sketch of Byeongkwan, a sketch from a time before all of this. A time before his friends hated his guts. A time before he fucked everything up. A time before he attended detention out of sheer guilt. A time before he got tackled in the hallway. A time before Byeongkwan bought him coffee and drove him to school. A time before he did everything he could to hide from him. A time before his best friend caught them in a remarkably suggestive position in the locker room.

A time before the gods of fate tossed his life up and down and sideways and every direction in between after nearly seventeen and a half years of being merciful.

A time before his steady drizzle of emotions became a torrential downpour.

A time before he skimmed his fingers across love’s surface, refusing to dive in for the fear of drowning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo this chapter and the next one were originally supposed to be only one chapter, but as this part is 7.4k on its own, I had to split it :( guess you’ll have to deal with angst a little longer hehehe


	5. I Love You, I Miss You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI HELLO GOOD MORNING KIM BYEONGKWAN THE MAN HIMSELF HAS [SEEN MY FANART](https://twitter.com/official_ACE7/status/1278354242755952640) EXCUSE ME WHILE I DIE
> 
> okay ahem time for the normal author's note
> 
> 191117 Yoon is superior. Thank you for coming to my TedTalk
> 
> also I guess they kinda live in a university town? I live in the middle of nowhere but I traveled to this one university town a lot (before... everything) and I don't really know what normal towns are like so yeah, they live in a university town

No matter how hard he tries, he can’t stop crying. He can’t rid himself of his guilt. Two weeks without Byeongkwan, nearly four since detention, and he still feels the same. The indifference he thought would come with time is nowhere to be found. In its place is unbearable bittersweetness, memories of his mistakes engraved into his head like epitaphs and memories of better times scattered in his mind like faded Polaroids. The love he’s come to rely on, it’s—

It’s almost gone. It’s almost gone, if not completely gone already, and it’s his fault.

He can barely remember the warmth of his smile, or the texture of his fleece jacket, or the comfort of his hugs. And he knows that these, too, will eventually become elusive desires only attainable in his dreams, just like stolen kisses in a closet and intimate walks through their neighborhood.

He needs to feel loved again, even if that love is and will only ever be platonic. He needs him.

Sooner or later, he’ll have to approach love’s shore and let himself drown.

_Bzz. Bzzz._

“What is it?”

“Have you fed Carr—wait, are you crying?” Eunsuh asks. “How long have you been crying for?”

“I’m not crying.”

“Yes, you are.”

_“I’m not crying.”_

“ _Yes, you are,_ ” Eunsuh repeats. “I’m sick of you lying to yourself. If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, but there’s no point denying it. If you won’t be honest with me, at least be honest with yourself.” Someone shouts at her on the other end. “Give me a second, it’s my brother! Sorry, I have to go. We’re talking as soon as I get back tomorrow morning.” She hangs up.

Sehyoon gets up, stumbles towards his bed, and faceplants into his pillow. He’ll have to put off his calculus worksheet for another day; he doesn’t want tear stains on his work. He opens up the notes app and swipes past old to-do lists and book recommendations until he finds the document he’s looking for—a collection of links to YouTube playlists. If he remembers correctly, the particular link he wants is the fourth one down. He taps on it and it brings him to a playlist of Vine™ compilations (desperate times call for desperate measures).

Contrary to what the videos’ titles claim, they don’t make him feel better, cure his depression, or butter his croissant—or his egg roll, for that matter. Not even the kid who has the power of God _and_ anime on his side ( **_ä̴̛̗̩͍͕́̄h̶̰̒̅ĥ̴̠͇͜h̵̫̟̱͐͝_** ) can make him laugh. Over seventeen compilations, and his heart is still as heavy as it was before. Not a grin, not a snicker, not even the faintest hint of a smile. He jumps down the proverbial YouTube rabbit hole and finds himself hopping from outlandish supernatural conspiracy theories to pastel speedpaints with Studio Ghibli arrangements as background music to weirdly calming Pokémon edits to videos of animals sneezing.

He blankly stares at the small Siamese kitten falling over from sneezing too hard. It feels like he should be doing something—something to do with cats, maybe? He looks at the time. 5:23. Yeah, there’s definitely something he’s forgetting about. The orange tabby on his screen leaps away from a cucumber. Orange tabby… hmm…

Crap. He forgot to feed Carrot.

He rolls off his bed, trudges downstairs, opens the cabinet above Carrot’s bowl, and shakes the bag of cat food.

No Carrot.

He shakes the bag harder.

Still no Carrot.

“Hey, Carrot, I have food. Carrot? _Carrot?”_

No mewling. No meowing. No ball of fur ziplining across the kitchen floor. No orange tabby in sight.

Sehyoon checks the laundry room, the dining room, the living room, the attic, every bathroom, every bedroom, and every closet to no avail.

Frustrated, he goes back to the living room, where something moves. Unfortunately, that something isn’t the aggravating cat he’s been searching for—it’s his dad, sleeping on the couch. Sehyoon shakes him awake.

“Ah, what is it? Did your mother call?”

“I can’t find Carrot.”

Mr. Kim stretches and cracks his back. “Have you looked—”

“I’ve looked everywhere. She’s gone.”

“Well, let’s see if that’s the case,” Mr. Kim says. He goes to the kitchen and retrieves a small bag of treats from a cupboard. “If this doesn’t work, then I don’t know what will.” He gently sways the bag back and forth. “Here, Carrot.”

When the cat doesn’t come running, Mr. Kim shakes the bag more and more vigorously until he’s swinging it around like a tuna-scented maraca.

“She’s gone,” Sehyoon repeats, the color draining from his face. “I lost Eunsuh’s cat. She’s going to kill me.”

“She’s probably hiding somewhere. We’ll find her.”

A gust of wind suddenly blows into the room.

“Hey, can you shut the win—” Mr. Kim’s eyes widen. “The window. You don’t think…”

Sehyoon walks over to the window. Upon further inspection, something catches his eye. “Dad, come here.”

The two of them stare at the faint impression of a pawprint in the dust on the windowsill.

“She’s gone,” Mr. Kim says weakly.

“Yeah.”

“Alright, I’m going to drive around the neighborhood.” Mr. Kim takes his keys from the coat rack. “Call your friends. We’ll need all the help we can get.”

“Got it. I’ll get my bike,” Sehyoon says, heading to the garage. He puts his helmet on and taps on Junhee’s number.

He picks up on the fourth ring. “If this is about Byeongkwan, I’m not—”

“Carrot’s missing. Can you drive over and help us look for her?”

“You lost your cat?”

“Eunsuh’s cat, actually, but yeah, Carrot’s not in the house.”

“Crap,” Junhee murmurs. “I’ll see if I can get Donghun and Chan to join the search party. How many other people are looking?”

“It’s just me, my dad, you, and whoever you decide to bring. The fewer people know, the better.”

“Okay. I’ll call you back when we’re in your neighborhood.”

“Thanks.” Sehyoon hangs up and opens the garage door so he and his father can exit—the former on his bike, the latter in his car.

“Hold on, what are we going to tell Eunsuh?” Mr. Kim asks before his son can take off.

“Um… I was thinking that we wouldn’t tell her about it,” Sehyoon says as he adjusts the sparkly purple streamers hanging from the ends of his bike’s handles. “Not unless we have to, of course.”

“Then let’s make sure we don’t have to. We better find her before sundown. Try looking at people’s lawns—that’s where I found her the last few times.” Mr. Kim starts up his car and Sehyoon coasts down the driveway.

He skims over the lawn of each house he pedals past, all of which are distinctly Carrotless—in regards to both the cat and the vegetable. It looks like there aren’t as many gardeners in his neighborhood as he thought there was. He assumed that a good deal of his neighbors had a green thumb, but given the amount of weeds and dandelions, it seems as if most of them are in the possession of a green middle finger.

He feels a bit stupid yelling the name of a plant over and over as he keeps an eye out for his sister’s cat, but the embarrassment is worth it if he doesn’t want to get his ass kicked. His voice is hoarse after biking around for over ten minutes, and worse yet, he doesn’t recognize the street names in this part of the neighborhood. He tries to remember them to avoid checking the same blocks twice, but the cold blurs his collection of clear mental snapshots until they become a hazy photobook in which all the avenues, roads, and boulevards are indistinguishable from one another.

His determination to keep himself from getting lost almost distracts him from the orange mass on the unkempt lawn of a small cottage. Sehyoon steps on his brakes and rests his bike against the house’s flaking mailbox.

“Carrot? Argh, you should really stop running off.” He makes his way through the overgrown grass until he reaches a small square plot of orange and purple flowers. 

The door of the cottage flies open and a tiny old woman hobbles out. “여기서 뭐해요? It’s so late, why are you here at this hour?”

Sehyoon looks up.

“Who are you?” The old woman squints at him. “And what do you want with my flowers?”

“I’m, uh, looking for Carrot,” Sehyoon answers.

“I don’t grow carrots.”

“No, Carrot’s the name of my sister’s cat,” he explains. “She’s missing.” 

“Well, as long as you’re not messing with my flowers.” 

Sehyoon crouches to take a better look. “Are these orange roses?” He bites his lip as his dream from earlier pushes itself to the forefront of his thoughts.

“Yes. My grandson is helping me grow them,” she says proudly. “They’re his favorite. The purple ones are statices. We planted the statices last month—it was his idea, actually. He said they reminded him of a friend.”

“I’ve always wanted to grow flowers.” He rubs one of the roses’ petals between his forefinger and his thumb. “The roses and stat… uh, statices? They’re both really pretty.”

“They are, aren’t they? I thought the colors would clash, but they look especially nice together. Your bike looks like them.” Its purple streamers sway in the wind as she leans against the railing on her porch and gestures to his bright orange bike.

“Oh, Shawty?”

“Who?”

“My bike. Um, my bike's name is Shawty.”

She blinks. “You have quite a way with names. You know, you look like you’re about my grandson’s age. How old are you?”

“Seventeen. I’m a twelfth grader.”

“Ah, you probably know my grandson, then.”

“I might.” He doesn’t recall ever talking to any gardening enthusiasts in his grade, but there’s always the chance.

“Do you know my little Byeongbyeong? Byeongkwan Kim. He’s a cheerleader, a bit on the shorter side, dyes his hair too often, spends all of his time with those loud soccer boys and that sad-looking boy—I’m sure you’ve seen him around.”

“Um, yeah. Yeah, I think I have,” Sehyoon says.

“Really?” Byeongkwan’s grandmother smiles. “That’s so nice to hear. Feel free to stop by if you need help with gardening, should you ever give it a try. Oh, and can you do me a favor?”

“Um, what?”

“The friend that Byeongkwan planted the statices for—he’s the reason my Byeongbyeong’s been so quiet lately. I don’t know what exactly his friend did to him, but if you ever see this boy, try to knock some sense into him for me. His name is Sehyoon, I think.”

Sehyoon looks down. “I’ll try.”

“Enjoy the rest of your evening… hmm, I don’t think you ever told me your name?” 

“I’m… I’m Dong… Dongjun,” Sehyoon stammers. “My name is Dongjun.”

“Well then, enjoy the rest of your evening, Dongjun.” Byeongkwan’s grandmother goes back into her house and shuts the door behind her.

Does he feel bad for lying to an old lady? Yes.

If Byeongkwan finds out that he lied to his grandmother, will it worsen their already disastrous relationship? Yes.

But will his lie keep Byeongkwan’s grandmother from finding out that the guy she offered to help with gardening is the same guy she wants vengeance on for being awful to her grandson? Probably not, but he’d like to pretend that the answer is yes.

Sehyoon mounts his bike and continues his search.

No Carrot, no Carrot, no Carrot, orange? No, that’s a pile of leaves… No Carrot, no Carrot. The situation feels more hopeless with every second that passes. He starts to face the reality that they might never find his sister’s cat—which means yet another stain on his muddy conscience. Lovely.

His phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls over.

“Hello?”

“Have you found her yet?” Mr. Kim asks. “I’ve driven everywhere in this part of the neighborhood, and I haven’t seen her.”

“Nope. And Jun hasn’t called me back yet, either.”

“Where are you now?”

“I have no idea.” Sehyoon looks at the nearest road sign. “Uh, I’m on Capaldi Street, apparently.”

“You’re not too far from your old middle school. Can you check the playground? That’s where she was the first time she ran away. I’ll continue driving around in this area—I think I missed a few blocks.” 

“I’m putting you on speaker,” Sehyoon says, placing his phone in the white wicker basket attached to his bike. “Can you give me the directions?”

“Sure. Go to the end of Capaldi Street, and then make a left onto Cyrus Way,” Mr. Kim instructs.

“Alright.”

“Do you see Hemmings Street?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, make a right when you get to the corner, and then take Arthur Avenue until you reach the playground.”

“Thanks, I’ll see if she’s there. Bye.” Sehyoon ends the call as he approaches his middle school.

A few seconds later, his phone rings again.

“What is it, Dad?”

“It’s Junhee.”

“Jun? Why the hell didn’t you call me back? Did you find her?” Sehyoon asks.

“Uh, sort of.”

“What do you mean, ‘sort of’?”

“We’ve been looking for Byeongkwan. He won’t respond to any of our texts or calls, and he isn’t at his house.”

“If you see him, tell him he owes me a few dollars for the gas we just wasted,” Donghun adds.

“Shit, is he okay? What happened to him? Hold on, what does Byeongkwan have to do with Carrot?”

“You haven’t seen his Instagram post?” Junhee asks.

“What Instagram post?”

“Chan, I told you to send it to him!”

“Come on, you know the reception right by Kwan’s house is trash!” Yuchan whines.

_“What Instagram post?”_

“I’ll send you a screenshot. Hopefully the reception here is better.” Junhee hangs up.

**oceanhee**

**Today** 6:11 PM

_So_

_You asked what Byeongkwan has to do with Carrot_

_And_

__

...

................

_You’re kidding me_

_Please tell me that’s a different cat_

_W h y_

_Don’t ask me_

_Where is he_

_Where’s the cat_

_We told you, we have no clue_

_He won’t pick up_

_Esmueyrusihdvsrk_

_I hate him_

_No you don’t_

_Maybe YOU should reach out to him_

_Yes I do_

_Haha hell no_

_I bet he just wants to be friends with the cat’s owner_

_He’s been doing a lot of weird things to get more friends lately_

_He’s holding my sister’s cat hostage_

_He kidnapped my sister’s cat_

_Stop acting like he broke into your house and stole her_

_From Yuchan’s comment, I wouldn’t put it past him_

_He catnapped her_

_You’re defending a catnapper, Jun_

_Talk_

_To_

_Him_

_N_

_O_

_Do you want her back or not??_

_I don’t know anymore_

_You’re impossible to deal with_

_I could say the same about you_

_Where are you guys right now_

_About that_

_I just checked Snapchat_

_Why the hell are you at McDonald’s_

_I’m going through a quarter-life crisis and you guys are having chicken mcnuggets_

_Did you even look for her at all_

_?????_

_Yes we did_

_For at least five minutes_

_Then Chan got hungry_

_So we had to get him food, or else we’d be irresponsible parents_

_I’m sorry for being a good father and feeding my son_

_Anyways_

_Message Byeongkwan. Get your cat_

_Ugh fine_

_I swear if anything happened to him it’s your fault_

_I can’t believe you stopped looking for him to get fast food_

_^^^her_

_I meant Carrot_

_Sure :]_

_Btw you have until Monday to make out with him or else we’re telling Hun_

_Uh *make up_

_Though if you make out that works too_

_Fuck you_

_Ily too <3 _

_-_-_

Sehyoon drafts his text four times over until he decides upon a short, simple _You have my cat_. Before he can send it, though, he hears faint meowing.

He turns towards the sound’s source and sees someone on one of the playground's swings with something orange on their lap.

**oceanhee**

_I found him._

Sehyoon takes a deep breath and heads towards Byeongkwan.

He’s sitting on the highest swing, his sneakers barely touching the woodchips. The neighboring swings’ rusty chains creak as the wind gently pushes them, but Byeongkwan is deadly still and silent, save for his hand running through Carrot’s fur as he cradles her.

“Hi.” Sehyoon takes off his helmet and brushes his hair from his face.

Byeongkwan looks up, a soft dusting of pink on his face from the cold, and his hand, along with Carrot’s purring, stops.

“You have my cat.”

Byeongkwan stares at his helmet and makes a strangled noise, as if he’s trying to keep himself from laughing.

“Yeah, I know it’s pretty stupid-looking,” Sehyoon says. “Jun and Donghun did all the drawings. It’s probably the weirdest birthday present I’ve ever received.”

Byeongkwan nods and resumes petting the cat.

“Are you going to give her back, or…?”

Byeongkwan keeps his head down.

“Hey, did you hear what I said?”

Sehyoon is ignored once again.

He gets down on one knee and reaches out to take the cat. “Here, can you please just—”

Byeongkwan grabs his wrist.

“Uh…?” 

Sehyoon’s heart skips a beat as Byeongkwan lets go of him and tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. It’s the first time he’s had physical contact with him in weeks, and despite the weather, it feels as if his whole body’s on fire. Byeongkwan hums softly as he traces Sehyoon’s jawline with his fingertips, still staring blankly at the cat, his glassy eyes unfocused.

“Byeongkwan, I…” Sehyoon whispers, unable to find his voice. “I…”

Byeongkwan flicks him on the forehead as hard as possible and he winces.

“ _Ow_ , why the hell—” Sehyoon rubs his forehead. “Sorry, but I kind of need my cat,” he says, removing Carrot from his lap and turning to walk back to his bike. “You should’ve responded to Jun and the others. They were worried about you.” He stops where the woodchips and half-dead grass meet. “ _I_ was worried about you.” A cloud of icy breath passes from his lips and he shivers. “You should go back home, you’re gonna freeze out here. And maybe don’t steal people’s cats.” He takes another step forward.

“Is that all?”

Sehyoon turns around.

“Is that all, Sehyoon?” Byeongkwan asks quietly.

“Yeah, that’s… That’s all.”

“Okay.” Byeongkwan takes a hold of his swing’s chains and pushes himself off from the ground.

Sehyoon leaves the playground, places Carrot in his bike’s wicker basket, and pedals back to his house. As soon as he enters, he calls his father and Junhee to let them know he found Carrot and waits for the former’s return at the kitchen table.

“So, you found her at the playground?” Mr. Kim asks, slipping out of his loafers.

“Yeah, she was hanging by the swings.” Sehyoon decides to leave out the fact that he wasn’t the first one who found her.

“I’m glad we don’t have to tell Eunsuh. Wait, we’re not telling her, are we? I’m just making sure.”

“No, we’re not. Look, I’m… I’m a little tired, so I’m gonna stay in my room for the rest of the night.”

“Alright. Good night, Wow.”

“Night, Dad.”

Sehyoon drags himself upstairs and falls back onto his bed. He forgot how much he missed the sound of his voice, how much he missed his excessive physical contact, how much he missed the way he could send his mind into a frenzy by doing the bare minimum. Missed his bright eyes, missed his warm smile, missed his soft hands. His playful teasing, his relentless clinginess, his endearing obstinance, his unwavering kindness. _Him._

He can’t take it anymore. 

_Give up_ , a voice in the back of his head murmurs. _Give up, give up, give up._

He can’t go on like this.

_Give in._

He can’t live like this.

_Drown._

**don’t.**

**Today** 7:39 PM

_Hey, can we talk? Like, actually talk. Please._

_Are you free tomorrow?_

_Text me back._

_Call me back?_

_Can you listen to my voicemails?_

_Byeongkwan_

_Byeongkwan_

_Byeongkwan Kim_

_Please._

Sehyoon writes something on a sticky note, rushes downstairs, puts on his sneakers, and opens the door.

“Sehyoon?” Mr. Kim calls out. “I thought you were staying in your room.”

“I just need some fresh air.”

“Okay, but don’t spend too much time out there. It’s nearly pitch black.”

Sehyoon leaves his house and runs down the block, his ragged breath and the sound of his Vans® hitting the pavement echoing into the night. The crescent moon shines down on him and illuminates the moths fluttering around the pair of cherry-printed Converse® on Byeongkwan’s porch as he jogs up the empty driveway. Half a minute after he rings the doorbell, the lights on the first floor flicker on. The knob turns, but the door remains closed.

Sehyoon softly knocks. “Byeongkwan? I know you’re there.” He crouches down and slowly slips the sticky note under his door.

Hey, Byeongkwan.

I want to talk to you. Can we meet up at 10:30 am tomorrow? I’ll be at that coffee shop on the corner in town. Brew Interactive. Please come. ~~I miss~~

~Sehyoon

P.S. Coffee’s on me. I’ll pay for anything you want.

Sehyoon laughs quietly as Byeongkwan yanks the note from his grasp.

“Will I see you there?”

The house goes dark.

Sehyoon rests his forehead against the door. “You’re something else, Kwan,” he mumbles. “Truly something else.”

He can’t help but smile for the entirety of his trip back to his house, his grin shining brighter than the stars above.

“From the look on your face, it seems like the air’s a lot fresher than usual,” Mr. Kim muses.

“You could say that.”

* * *

Sehyoon tugs a pair of jeans off the hanger. Maybe—no, too tight. Back on the hanger they go. He glances at a pair of shorts and frowns—he doesn’t need to try them on to know they barely go past his mid-thigh. Nope. These sweatpants don’t look too bad, he might be—uh, brown stain. Either it's chocolate or Carrot got into his closet again. The next pair he considers is great, except for the fact that it somehow smells like expired ramen broth and stale cotton candy. And something else, too. He sniffs. Strawberry. This must be the pair that Junhee spilled his latte on. He tosses both pairs of sweatpants into the laundry basket and decides on a baggy pair of brown plaid ones. Given how closely they hug his legs, he can tell they originally belonged to Donghun, but he’s sure he won’t mind (probably); it’s not like it’s the first article of clothing he’s permanently borrowed.

Sehyoon jumps when he hears someone pounding their fists against his door.

“Open up!” Eunsuh demands. “I said we’d talk tomorrow morning, and it’s tomorrow morning.” She picks his lock and enters his bedroom. “Sehyoon? Where are you?”

“In the closet.”

“I know, but if you want a boyfriend, you have to be more open about—”

“No, I mean I’m physically in the closet. If you want to talk, make it quick. I have to leave in fifteen minutes.”

“Leave? You… You have plans? You’re going somewhere on a Saturday morning? _Who are you?”_

“Ha ha, very funny. I’m meeting up with someone at Brew Interactive, and I’d rather not be late.” Sehyoon sifts through a musty pile of sweatshirts, most of them wrinkled and covered in paint splotches.

“You have a _date?”_ Eunsuh gasps. “Hold on, are you going out with Byeongkwan?”

“It’s not a date.”

“You have a coffee shop date with Byeongkwan,” she says, awed. “I’m so proud of you. I never thought I’d see the day. Since you guys are back together, there’s no point lecturing you anymore.”

“ _It’s not a date.”_ He steps out of his closet and attempts to smooth out his sweatshirt.

“You’re not leaving this house in that.” She wrinkles her nose at the large green and white flecks of paint on his sleeves.

“It’s a vibe.”

“Yeah, and I’m checking it and it doesn’t pass,” she deadpans. “The pants are fine, and your hair is okay, but you have to change your sweatshirt.”

“There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“There’s a French fry stuck to your shoulder.”

“...Maybe I’ll change.”

He heads into his closet again and comes back out with a black sweater tucked into the waistband of his pants.

“That’s much better.” Eunsuh nods in approval. “You look like an artsy grandpa, but at least it’s an upgrade from what you usually wear. Now, go and sweep him off his feet. Have fun on your date!”

Sehyoon rolls his eyes as he walks past her. “We’re just friends. I think. I don’t know what he wants us to be. I don’t know if there even _is_ an ‘us’,” he murmurs, absentmindedly running his thumb over the face of his watch.

“Shouldn't you be leaving now?” Eunsuh asks.

“I have a few—I have a minute left, crap. Uh, see you in an hour, if this all goes well.” He rushes out of his room and down the stairs, haphazardly throws on his coat, laces up his Doc Martens®, and grabs his keys. “Hey, Mom, I’ll be gone for a while. I have to go somewhere.”

“Oh?” Mrs. Kim raises her eyebrows. “Are you meeting up with Junhee and Donghun? I can drive you, if you want. When do you think you’ll be back?”

“He has a date,” Eunsuh announces, hopping down the steps. “With the cheerleader a few houses away.”

_“Stop calling it that.”_

“A _date?_ Why didn’t you tell me, I could’ve—”

Sehyoon doesn’t stay to hear the rest of his mother's sentence. Instead, he bolts out the door and tries to start up his car as quickly as possible.

Mrs. Kim trails after him. “Where are you going? How much money are you going to spend? Did you buy him anything? Please tell me you bought him something. I’m friends with the owner of that flower shop in town, she’ll give you a discount if—”

Sehyoon shakes his head as he pulls out of the driveway and begins his route to Brew Interactive. After a few minutes on the road, he turns on the radio and ends up singing along.

“ _Yeah, I’m gonna take my horse to the old town road, I’m gonna ride ‘til I can’t no more~”_

He rolls his windows down and laughs as the wind tousles his hair. He can’t help but smile at the prospect of talking to Byeongkwan, at the prospect of just seeing him again. Sehyoon imagines them laughing over some dumb joke, complaining about calculus homework, sharing a piece of chocolate cake, poking fun at their friends, holding hands as they walk through town. Just them, together.

“ _Hat down, cross town, livin’ like a rockstar, spent a lot of money on my brand new guitar, baby’s got a habit~”_

The driver behind him honks their horn. Sehyoon awkwardly rolls his windows back up and parallel parks by the coffee shop in under half a minute—without blood sacrifice, surprisingly, which is usually the only way to parallel park in under half a minute. He locks his car, enters Brew Interactive, and is immediately hit by the aroma of vanilla and caramel and the distinct yet indescribable scent of stressed university students on the verge of a mental breakdown.

“I’ll have one medium iced americano, please,” Sehyoon says to the barista behind the counter. “I’m waiting on someone, though. Can you bring it out when he arrives?”

“Sure thing,” the barista replies. There are barely any other customers in the shop, so Byeongkwan’s arrival (if he accepts Sehyoon’s invitation, that is) won’t go unnoticed. “That’ll be $2.95. Hold on, did you say _iced_ americano?”

A university student hunching over his laptop shivers as the door opens and another customer enters.

“Yeah, iced. Don’t ask, I don’t know why either.” Sehyoon hands her a five dollar bill and drops his change in the tip jar, labeled as such by an index card with stickers and colorful bubble letters. “He’ll be here in around five minutes, hopefully.”

He sits down at a table near the window and hangs his coat on the back of his chair. Mothers with strollers, families with dogs, elderly couples, university students, middle school students, and high school students pass by Brew Interactive, all dressed in varying levels of winter apparel—it’s not even December yet, but it’s already as cold as it is in the middle of January. Some are dressed in thin sweatshirts, their hands deep in their pockets to keep them from freezing off, but others are decked out in thick parkas, scarves, gloves, and hats. None of them are wearing a pink wool knit cap with a darker pink pom-pom or a red and green plaid fleece jacket. Byeongkwan is nowhere to be found. He attempts to call him, only to discover that he’s been blocked.

A minute passes, then five, then ten, then twenty. 

Every time the bell above the door rings, his head snaps up and a person from the myriad of pedestrians outside steps into the coffee shop. And that person is never the boy who found his sister’s cat in the playground, they’re never the boy who constantly invades his dreams, they’re never the boy who consumes his thoughts like a bucket of fried chicken.

After thirty minutes, the barista approaches his table, frowning. “Hey, do you still want your coffee? It’s been half an hour.”

“Yeah, I know,” Sehyoon says, still looking out the window. “He’s running late. He’ll be here.”

“If he doesn’t show up—”

“He’ll show up.”

“If he doesn’t show up,” she repeats, making him frown, “I’ll give you a refund for the americano and you can order any drink, on the house. It sucks being stood up. I would know.”

“I’m not being stood up,” Sehyoon says quietly.

The barista sighs and heads back to the counter to take another customer’s order.

Thirty-five minutes.

Maybe… Maybe he won’t show up. Maybe he doesn’t want to be friends him with anymore, maybe he realized that there are better friends for him out there, friends who won’t fuck everything up as awfully as he has, friends who won’t tell him to leave him alone for the rest of his life, friends who are worth caring for.

Forty minutes.

He tried to shove him away, and he succeeded. Isn’t this what he wanted? He’s out of Byeongkwan’s life. Byeongkwan ignored his note, he blocked his number, and now he’s refusing to see him. Byeongkwan's life will undoubtedly be better now that they’re apart, but Sehyoon can’t say the same, no matter how much he’d like to be able to. Everything just feels… empty. Everything feels empty without him. He hasn’t stopped thinking about him for the past month, hasn’t stopped regretting what he said to him. He can’t tear his mind away from the gaping hole in his life that Byeongkwan carved out.

Fifty minutes. 

He can’t help but feel selfish for wanting him back. He failed to realize how much he means to him, how much he _still_ means to him, because even though he’s nothing but a failed attempt at friendship to Byeongkwan, Sehyoon will never be able to forget how he made him feel, how he became so much more than the boy who sits across from him in calculus. He’ll never forget how Byeongkwan never saw him as Donghun and Junhee’s third wheel like everyone else always has, how he bothered to care about him, how he wanted to be his friend not because of who his friends are, but because of who he is. Something about Sehyoon drew him in, and now he’ll never know what that something is.

One hour.

“I… I don’t think he’s coming,” he says to the barista, removing his coat from his chair. “I’ll pass on the drink and the refund. Enjoy the rest of your shift.”

As soon as he gets up, the bell rings again. His eyes land on Brew Interactive’s newest customer—a boy wearing a red and green plaid fleece jacket zipped up to his chin with the hood up. Sehyoon swallows and sits back down as Byeongkwan walks over to him, takes a seat, and crosses his arms.

“Hi, I didn’t think you’d come,” Sehyoon says. He smiles as the barista places an iced americano on their table.

Byeongkwan raises an eyebrow.

“Here, this is for you.” Sehyoon pushes the drink towards him.

Byeongkwan hesitantly picks up the cup and takes a sip.

“I didn’t mean what I said,” Sehyoon begins. “I thought I did, but I didn’t. I really didn’t. I’m canceling the favor. I miss talking to you, I miss being with you, I—I miss—I miss you. I miss you so much, you have no idea. I miss you hugging me when I’m tired, I miss you playing with my hair, I miss you putting up with me even though I’m weird and I’m a mess and there are a million other people you could spend your time with. I miss being friends with you, because even though I refused to admit it, we were friends, and I loved that.

“I wanted us to sever ties with each other because I thought it would be best for us. I didn’t want to drag you down. I didn’t want you to waste your time with me. I didn’t… I didn’t think I was good enough for you.” His voice softens. “I couldn’t handle the thought of being good enough for you.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for trying to cut you out of my life, and I’m sorry for hurting you. I don’t know what you’ve been thinking because of what I did, but from what everyone else has told me, I don’t think you’ve been great over the past few weeks. I can’t undo what I said and did. I can’t make us forget everything. Trust me, if I could, I would. The most I can do is ask for your forgiveness, and whether or not you give it to me is your choice.”

Byeongkwan swirls the ice in his drink around with his straw and takes a long sip. “Can I still call you ‘Yoon’?” he asks.

Sehyoon blinks. “Huh?”

“If we were to be friends again, would you be okay if I called you nicknames?”

“Uh… Yeah? More than okay, actually,” Sehyoon laughs. “That’s another thing I missed about you.”

Byeongkwan’s eyes widen. 

“Shit, did I say something wrong?” Sehyoon’s laughter dies down. He came on too strong, didn’t he? He should’ve kept his mouth shut. Fuck.

“No, it’s just… I’ve never heard you laugh before,” Byeongkwan replies. “It’s… It’s nice. You have a nice laugh. You’re always so stoic, you know that? I was kinda scared of you until I realized you’re just a soft idiot. You stared at me weirdly, too. For a while I thought you hated me.”

“What? I could never hate you. You’re pretty much impossible to hate,” Sehyoon says. As soon as the words come out of his mouth, he realizes how much of a lovestruck dumbass he sounds like, but he doesn't mind. “I think I forget to express my emotions sometimes.” 

Byeongkwan laughs and his hand immediately flies up to cover his face. “Well, maybe you should remember more often. I like it when you smile.”

“So do I.” Sehyoon reaches across the table and gently removes his hand from his mouth. “I wish you didn’t hide it all the time.” His breath hitches as Byeongkwan laces their fingers together.

“I’d love to be friends again, Yoon,” he says, lightly squeezing his hand. “I’m sorry for being weird about not smiling in the first place. It’s nothing big—I shouldn’t have freaked out so much.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Sehyoon reassures. “If there’s a reason why you do it—uh, why you don't do it—you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Thanks. It’s not really something that I like talking about.” He looks down at their hands before meeting his gaze. “Can I order something?”

“Yeah, as long as you don’t buy the whole shop,” Sehyoon says.

Byeongkwan grins and drags him to the counter. “He’ll have a large caffè mocha with 2% milk, whipped cream, and chocolate powder, please.”

“No, I won’t,” Sehyoon cuts in. “I’m fine, I don’t need anything. Come on, Kwan, order something for yourself.”

“You said you’d buy anything I want, right?” Byeongkwan pouts. “And I want a large caffè mocha with 2% milk, whipped cream, and chocolate powder. For you. That’s all, miss barista.”

“Kwan, no, I don’t deserve—”

“Yes, you do,” Byeongkwan says, putting his hands on Sehyoon’s shoulders. “You deserve a lot more than you think.”

The sincerity and intensity in his eyes make him feel warmer than any drink in Brew Interactive ever could. It's that warmth that makes his heartbeat stutter and his body tense up, that makes him want to throw himself into the void and cry into his pillow and paint sunsets and plant flowers and scream about him from his rooftop. It's that warmth that makes him as whipped as dalgona coffee.

And he doesn't hate that warmth.

He doesn't hate it at all.

The barista clears her throat. “Um, that’ll be $4.99, if you’re buying the mocha.”

"Oh. Right," Sehyoon says as Byeongkwan puts his hands in his pockets. "You don’t want anything for yourself?” He reluctantly hands her the money. “If I were in your position, I’d be getting breakfast for the next week. They’ve got some really good stuff here—muffins, bagels, doughnuts, croissants, rolls, scones, crepes, tarts, turnovers, danishes.” He points at each item in the glass display, his mouth watering as he goes through the list. “There are cookies and brownies, too. Do you want a cake pop? Oh, or maybe a cannoli. I can get you a—”

“I thought you told me not to buy the whole shop,” Byeongkwan teases. 

“Yeah, I don’t think my parents would appreciate me spending my college fund on bakery treats. You can buy one-fourth of the shop, though. I might be able to afford that.”

“I’m not going to lie—you’ve done some terrible shit.” Byeongkwan takes the cup as soon as the barista sets it on the counter and dumps a packet of sugar into it. “But I don’t think I should empty out your wallet because of your mistakes. That’s kind of awful—I don’t know who would do that.”

“Donghun.”

“I mean, you’re not wrong, but still. I don’t know anyone with a heart who would do that,” Byeongkwan says, handing him his coffee.

Sehyoon laughs and shakes his head as they take their places at the table again. “You know, he actually did that, once—he emptied out Jun’s wallet. Back in seventh grade, Jun and Donghun were supposed to be babysitting Donghun’s brother's cat, Hae, and Jun lost her while Donghun was calling his brother. He got so mad that they didn’t talk for a week until Jun said he’d buy anything for him if he forgave him. He got him a super expensive skateboard, and then Hae showed up the next day. It turns out that she was just trying to find a quiet place to give birth. That’s how we got Carrot.”

“That’s a cute name. Are you the one who named her?”

“ _Absolutely not._ I wanted nothing to do with that cat but my sister begged our parents to keep her. She’s the only cat I can tolerate. They’re all _terrifying_.”

Byeongkwan raises his eyebrows. “Wait, you’re afraid of cats? Like, just strays, or tiny little kittens, too? _How?”_

“You _aren’t_ _?_ They’re so creepy—always watching you, following you, putting their face right next to yours while you’re asleep. They puke up their own hair and bring dead animals to your door, too. Tell me that doesn’t freak you out.”

“Wait, so would this scare you?”

“I doubt that—”

Byeongkwan starts meowing and Sehyoon chokes on his coffee.

“Oh God, please don’t—”

Sehyoon hides his face in his hands as his meows become louder and more aggressive and the other customers turn to stare at them. “Please stop that,” he mutters, looking away.

“Did that scare you?” Byeongkwan asks after he stops meowing. “I bet that scared you.”

“Not really, no,” Sehyoon says, regretting his decision to meet up with him in a public area. “That was the least scary thing I’ve heard all day. It was more cute than anything. You’re, um…” His throat suddenly becomes dry. “You’re c—”

Byeongkwan’s phone buzzes loudly and he frowns as he checks it. “I have to go in a couple of minutes.”

“Oh, really?” Sehyoon tries to mask his disappointment.

“Yeah, sorry for cutting this short,” Byeongkwan sighs. “Thanks for inviting me here. It was fun talking to you—I hope we can do this again sometime. This sounds kinda strange, but I… I like listening to your voice. When you’re telling me stories, when you’re laughing, when you’re singing in your car. I didn’t know you could say more than two sentences in a row.” He turns off his phone and smiles at Sehyoon.

“Uh, thanks? I like liste—hold on, you’ve never heard me singing in my car, though? You’ve never been in my car to begin with.”

“Old Town Road?” Byeongkwan smirks. “I drove past you on the way here. You sounded like you were enjoying yourself.”

“...Then why did you show up an hour late?!”

“I had to have my revenge somehow. I wasn’t going to let you off the hook _that_ easily.”

“You showed up an hour late. _On purpose._ And you call Donghun heartless.”

Byeongkwan shrugs and gets up. “I guess his heartlessness is rubbing off on me. Anyways, I have to leave. I’ll see you soon.”

“Before you go, are you sure you don’t want anything for yourself?”

“For the last time, I don’t—” Byeongkwan pauses. “Actually, I do want something for myself.”

“A bag of cookies?” Sehyoon guesses. “You seem like a cookie person. Or a tiramisu person. Do you want another americano for the road?”

“The thing I want isn’t something you can buy at Brew Interactive.”

Sehyoon knits his eyebrows in confusion. “Is it something I can buy at Starbucks, then?”

Byeongkwan laughs and heads towards the exit. “Ah, never mind. Maybe I’ll tell you one day.”

As the bell rings, Sehyoon notices a piece of paper on the table.

Hey, Byeongkwan.

I want to talk to you. Can we meet up at 10:30 am tomorrow? I’ll be at that coffee shop on the corner in town. Brew Interactive. Please come. ~~I miss~~

~Sehyoon

P.S. Coffee’s on me. I’ll pay for anything you want.

**_Hey, Yoon._ **

**_I miss you too._ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't make a single dick joke this whole chapter and I'm surprised, honestly
> 
> I hope you all had a great [pride month!](https://twitter.com/hashtag/OwOPrideArt?src=hashtag_click&f=live)


	6. Just A Little Bit More

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw // blood (nothing graphic, but it’s there)
> 
> Anyways, it feels so weird writing an autumn-based chapter when it's summer but then again writing is weird in general,,

“No, Kwan, you know I’m sensitive there,” Sehyoon giggles in his sleep. “Ah, you always rush everything, let’s take this slow for once. Yeah, like that… Right there, please...”

_Ring. Ring._

He opens his eyes and attempts to sit up, nearly hitting his head in the process. He groans when he looks at his alarm clock. It’s eight o’clock on a Sunday morning; who the hell is calling him at this hour? He removes his phone from the charger and squints at the screen, his eyes still unfocused. All he can tell is that the call isn’t from an unknown number. He puts his phone back on his nightstand, pulls his blankets over his head, and tries to go back to sleep. Junhee probably wants someone to talk to while making breakfast or something. He has other friends—he can call them instead.

_Ring. Ring. Ring._

Sehyoon relents and picks up. “What?” he mumbles.

“Come over,” Byeongkwan says.

“Kwan? Kwan, it’s so early, why…? I’ll call you back later, just please… mm… please let me sleep…”

“I need money.”

“For what?”

“A gift. Come over, I’ll explain everything. Oh, and make sure to dress warm.” Byeongkwan hangs up.

Sehyoon sighs and rolls off his bed. He changes into a different pair of sweatpants, throws on a sweatshirt, slips on his Vans®, and scribbles something onto a notepad on the kitchen table.

I’m with Byeongkwan, don’t know when I’ll be back. Don’t wait for me. ~Wow

He grabs a chocolate chip bagel and makes his way to Byeongkwan’s house as quickly as possible, grateful that he was warned about the weather. The cold air makes him fully awake, and by the time he reaches his porch and knocks on his door, his face is pink and numb.

“Come in. It’s unlocked,” Byeongkwan says from inside.

Sehyoon opens the door and almost trips on a pair of rakes.

“Hey, be careful.” Byeongkwan finishes tying up his cherry-printed Converse® and springs up from the bottom step. “You should’ve brought a thicker coat. We’re gonna be outside for a while.”

“Outside? Uh, what’s with the rake? And what do you need money for?” Sehyoon asks, propping up the rakes against the wall.

“Like I said, a gift,” Byeongkwan replies. He puts his hands on Sehyoon’s shoulders and leans in.

“Um, what are you—”

Byeongkwan takes a bite of his bagel. “This is pretty good. Where’d you get it from?”

“I bought a few from Brew Interactive after you left,” Sehyoon says, staring at his now-disfigured breakfast item. “You... You can have it, if you want.” He holds the bagel out towards him.

“No, it’s fine. I just wanted to try it. Keep your bagel.”

Sehyoon notices that the parts around where he bit into are glistening with saliva. From the looks of it, he must’ve licked all over the surface before sinking his teeth in. He can’t help but wonder if that’s also how he gives hickeys. “Are you sure? I have more at home, and you—”

“Keep your bagel,” Byeongkwan insists, refusing to break eye contact with him. He grins as Sehyoon reluctantly nibbles on his lubricated bagel, doing his best to avoid ingesting his saliva but ultimately failing.

Sehyoon tries to ignore how damp it is. “So, why exactly did you ask me to come over?”

“It’s my older brother Seonkwan’s birthday on Friday,” Byeongkwan explains. “And when he comes back for the break, I want to give him an art tablet as a gift. He’s double majoring in computer science and finance, but he’s always loved drawing, and he goes on and on about wanting to try digital art whenever I call him.”

“That’s sweet of you,” Sehyoon mutters, still looking down at his bagel as if he’s not quite sure whether or not it’s covered in Byeongkwan’s bodily fluids. It is, it _definitely_ is, but he can’t seem to process that. He takes another cautious bite and notices a fruity flavor that wasn’t there before as he chews. Cherry? Sure enough, there are faint pink chapstick smudges on his bagel. It doesn’t taste that bad, in all honesty.

“I don’t have enough money for the tablet, though.” Byeongkwan takes a pink scarf off of the banister and wraps it around his neck. “And I have to order it by today, or else it won’t arrive until he gets back to his apartment.”

“Can’t you ask your parents to pay for the rest?” Sehyoon asks.

“No way, I’m paying for everything myself. I need fifty dollars, and if we find the right people, we’ll get those fifty dollars in no time.” 

“How exactly are we getting those fifty dollars?”

“Helping our neighbors. Raking leaves, walking dogs, watering their plants, whatever they need. I haven’t made any appointments, so we’ll have to wing it. Hey, can I have the rest of your bagel?”

“Yeah, sure, of course.”

Rather than taking the last bite-sized piece out of his hands and putting it in his mouth, like any normal person would, he jumps straight to step two. Sehyoon inhales sharply as his teeth graze his forefinger and his tongue flicks against his thumb. His mouth lingers near his hand for a few more seconds than what Sehyoon would feel comfortable with (which is zero seconds). He chews very, _very_ slowly, making absurdly obscene noises as he does so.

 _It’s a bagel, he’s just eating a goddamn bagel, calm the fuck down, stop having weird thoughts,_ Sehyoon tries to tell himself. When Byeongkwan finally swallows, the volume of the sound makes Sehyoon regret ever picking up the phone. Fuck, he should’ve stayed in bed. He’s tempted to run back to his house and crawl under his covers and go back to sleep. Or, ahem, do _other things_ that shall go unnamed. Byeongkwan drags his tongue across his bottom lip to lick off the crumbs and Sehyoon feels like he’s intruding on something he was never meant to see.

“You’ll have to take me out to Brew Interactive again sometime.” Byeongkwan opens the door for him and sweetly smiles as if he hasn’t just emotionally scarred him for the rest of his life. “We’ll be heading to that part of the neighborhood where all the elderly people live—they usually need help with these sorts of things. I know this isn’t exactly an ideal way to spend your Sunday, but I promise it’ll be fun, especially since we’ve got each other’s company.” He puts the rakes in the trunk, shuts it, and starts up his car.

Sehyoon straps himself in. “Why are you doing this with me, of all people? You could’ve called up Chan or Jun or Donghun or… I don’t know. Anyone but me.” 

“Well, I usually do this with Chan, but he’s on his way to a family reunion two hours from here. Besides, I feel bad about ditching you yesterday. I really wanted to be with you for at least another hour.”

“Why’d you have to go?” Sehyoon asks.

“By the way, my grandma lives nearby,” Byeongkwan says, his voice noticeably wavering. “Have you met my grandma yet?” 

Sehyoon raises his eyebrows upon sudden the change of subject. “Uh, no, I don’t think I have,” he lies.

“She usually stays home on the weekend, so we might get to visit her. Oh, here’s Mr. Bass’s house. It looks like he needs someone to clear up his lawn.” He pulls up to the curb and gets out of his car. “You go up and ring his doorbell, and I’ll get everything we need from the trunk.”

“Are you sure? I can—”

Byeongkwan shoos him towards the house. “They’re _my_ gardening tools. I’m carrying them.”

Sehyoon walks up Mr. Bass’s driveway and taps his foot as he waits for him to answer the door. After twenty seconds, Mr. Bass opens the door so that only a small sliver of his face is visible. He looks Sehyoon up and down and squints at him. “I’m not interested.”

“What?”

“Whatever you’re selling, whatever you’re preaching, whatever event you want me to attend—I’m not interested, especially from the likes of a punk like you.”

“I’m not—uh, I’m not a punk,” Sehyoon says, looking down at the ACDC logo on the front of his sweatshirt and the hand-sewn Umbrella Academy patch on his sleeve. He awkwardly tries to tuck the silver chain hanging from the waistband of his sweatpants into his pocket. “And I’m—we aren’t trying to sell you anything.”

“We?”

“Mr. Bass!” Byeongkwan calls out, rushing to his porch with the rakes, a watering can, and a large folded paper bag. “How have you been?”

Mr. Bass fully opens the door and embraces Byeongkwan once he puts down his gardening tools. “Byeongkwan! I didn’t know you were coming over. I was just thinking about asking your grandmother to call you up for me, actually. I can’t see the grass on my lawn anymore. Ah, I’m fine, how about you? You’re a senior, right? How’s high school going?”

“Senior year’s been pretty interesting so far,” Byeongkwan says, smiling at Sehyoon. “How are your grandkids?”

“My youngest is a nightmare of a toddler, as usual, and her brother turned eight last week. I still can’t believe he’s in second grade. It feels like it was just yesterday that I was cradling him in my arms. It feels like it was less than a month ago that you and Yuchan showed up on my porch for the first time and asked if you could mow my lawn. It’s all going by so fast. I blink, and then everyone’s all grown up.”

Sehyoon accidentally kicks the watering can and it falls over with a hollow thud.

Mr. Bass lets go of Byeongkwan and turns towards him. “What are you still doing here? I said I’m not interested.”

“He’s my friend. We came here to spruce up your front yard a bit,” Byeongkwan says.

 _"Junhee?_ What happened to you? When did your face get so puffy? When did your hair get so greasy?” Mr. Bass asks incredulously.

Byeongkwan stifles a laugh. “His name is Sehyoon.”

“Oh, Sehyoon? I don’t think I’ve ever—” Mr. Bass wrinkles his nose. “Oh. _Sehyoon._ Your grandmother mentioned him,” he mutters.

“Don’t worry, he apologized for all of that,” Byeongkwan says. “Should we just rake your leaves, or do you need anything else?”

“Just the leaves should be fine. I don’t want you boys to stay out for too long and catch a cold,” Mr. Bass says, but from his frosty attitude, it seems as if he wishes Sehyoon would freeze to death. He retreats into his house and shuts the door.

“I’m sorry about him,” Byeongkwan sighs. “The people in this part of the neighborhood are very, uh, _protective_ of me. I mentioned what happened with the favor to my grandma, and I guess she told all of her friends. So I kind of ruined everyone’s first impression of you.”

“It’s okay. I’m not really used to anyone having a good first impression of me.”

Byeongkwan hands him one of the rakes. “If it helps, I had a good first impression of you.”

“Did you really?” Sehyoon asks, hopping off of the porch and getting to work on a particularly leafy section of the lawn.

“More or less,” Byeongkwan shrugs. “I thought you were the most awkward guy I’d ever met, but you came off as a good person. Weird, dorky, and quiet, but good. You passed the vibe check. Looking back on everything, not much has changed. What about you? What was your first impression of me?”

“Uh, I thought you were cool,” Sehyoon answers sheepishly. “The first things I noticed about you were your hair and your eyes, and I thought—”

_Wow, he’s beautiful. He has to be the prettiest boy in the whole universe._

“—I thought, _Wow, he must have a lot of confidence._ And that impression stuck throughout the years. For as long as I’ve known you, you’ve been confident and wild and defiant and… amazing, really. You’re amazing.” He shakes his head and smiles as he plucks off the leaves on the teeth of his rake.

“But I’m not,” Byeongkwan whispers, barely loud enough for Sehyoon to hear. But he does.

“Are you kidding? You’re the most amazing person I know. You came out to the whole school, you fought the school board _twice_ , you became the first and only guy on the cheerleading team, you got those two guys suspended, you made me realize I like g—” Sehyoon catches himself. “You made me realize that making friends actually isn’t too bad. If you aren’t amazing, then I don’t know what you are.”

“Attention-seeking. Naïve. Irritating.” His words are as icy, bitter, and matter-of-fact as the sharp autumn wind.

Sehyoon frowns and stops raking. “You’re none of those things. I don’t know how you could possibly believe that you’re any of those things.”

“And I don’t know how you could possibly believe that I’m amazing.” Byeongkwan starts counting on his fingers. “Number one, I don’t understand the concept of personal space and I make people uncomfortable. Number two, I’m childish and I complain too much when things don’t go my way. Number three, I’m clingy and I rely too much on other people for my own happiness. Number four, my smile is ugly, and my teeth look weird, and my laugh is obnoxious. Should I go on?”

“Byeongkwan,” Sehyoon begins. “Byeongkwan, what happened after you left yesterday?”

“Nothing important.”

“What happened? Who told you that you’re—Who told you all these awful things?”

 _“Nothing important happened._ ”

“It sure doesn’t sound like it.”

“You said that I don’t have to talk about stuff that I don’t want to, right? Even if something happened after I left, then I don’t—I wouldn’t want to talk about it.”

“But have you talked about it with anyone else? Are you going to talk about it with anyone else?”

“No to your first question and no to your second, because nothing happened.”

Sehyoon walks over to Byeongkwan’s pile of leaves. “You leave me no choice.” He starts kicking the pile and the leaves scatter all over the yard.

“Hey, what the hell—”

“I’m not gonna stop until you admit that you’re amazing.”

“I won’t—”

“Come on, say it!” Sehyoon scoops up an armful of leaves and tosses it into the air.

 _“Jerk,”_ Byeongkwan mutters, frantically trying to rake all of the displaced leaves back into his pile. 

Sehyoon twirls around, messing up his pile even more, and laughs. “Say it!”

“Fine, fine. You win. I’m amazing.”

“What was that? I didn’t hear you.”

“I’m amazing,” Byeongkwan repeats, slightly louder. “There, I said it. I’m… I’m amazing. Alright, now it’s payback time.”

Before Sehyoon can stop him, he runs over to Sehyoon’s pile and brushes the leaves away with his rake. “That’s what you get for messing with my pile, you jerk.”

“Hey! Wait! Stop!”

“It’s what you deserve.”

“Then I guess I’ll go on ruining your leaf pile.”

“I already said what you wanted me to say, cut that out!”

_“Make me.”_

“You asked for it.” Byeongkwan drops his rake and tackles Sehyoon. They laugh as they roll around in the leaves, completely destroying their leaf piles and undoing all of their hard work.

“You’re making this so much worse,” Sehyoon grins as his hands find their place on Byeongkwan’s waist. “At this point, you’ll have to wait until Christmas to buy the tablet.”

“ _I’m_ making this worse?” Byeongkwan scoffs. “You’re the one who started kicking my leaves around.” He attempts to get up, only for Sehyoon to pull him back down.

“And you’re the one who started saying dumb shit about yourself,” Sehyoon mumbles, hugging him to his chest.

Byeongkwan twirls one of his sweatshirt strings around his finger and sighs. “But what if that dumb shit is true?”

“It’s not.”

“But Yoon—”

Sehyoon hugs him tighter. “ _It’s not._ It wasn’t, it isn’t, and it never will be.”

The front door flies open and Mr. Bass waddles out of his house. “Hi, I just wanted to see how you boys are—” He stops upon seeing the two of them lying on the ground, their limbs tangled up and the front yard in an even worse state than before. “Uh, when do you think you’ll be done?”

“Oh, sorry, we were just—Sorry, we got a little distracted,” Byeongkwan apologizes. He gets off of Sehyoon and helps him up.

“As long as you get it done,” Mr. Bass mutters and heads back into his house.

“Um… Thank you.” Byeongkwan wraps his arms around Sehyoon’s neck and rests his head on his shoulder. “Thank you, I really needed that.” 

“No problem.” His breath hitches as Byeongkwan lifts his head and looks at his mouth. He runs his hands through Sehyoon’s hair and ever so slowly inches his face closer and closer to his, his gaze still concentrated on his lips, before suddenly stepping back.

Byeongkwan lets go of him, brushes off the leaves clinging to his jacket, and picks up his rake. “Okay, we should really fix all of this.”

What was that? _What was that? What? Was? That?_

What.

The.

_Fuck._

Was.

_That._

Byeongkwan just tried to—No. There’s no way. He’s imagining things. Byeongkwan would never try to—try to—do _that._ He’s delusional. He’s dumb, he’s delusional, and he’s desperate. Byeongkwan isn’t interested in him like that, he wasn’t going to—he wasn’t going to do what Sehyoon thought he was going to do. As hard as he tries to expel the thought of Byeongkwan reciprocating his feelings, he can’t stop himself from imagining what his chapstick-covered lips would feel like against his, what noises he would make if he let his hands wander, or what his collarbone would look like when it’s all marked up.

“Hey, are you gonna help me?” Byeongkwan asks, poking him with his rake.

“What? Oh, um, yeah.” Sehyoon picks up the other rake and tries to shake his thoughts from his head. “So, I take it that you’ve known the people around here for a while?”

“Yeah, I’ve been doing this since middle school. It was Seonkwan’s idea, actually. He would drive us to this neighborhood and we would help our grandma and her friends with anything they needed. When he moved away for college, I started doing it with Chan. I’m pretty sure everyone sees us as their honorary grandsons. Some of them even call me this dumb nickname that my grandma always uses.”

“Byeongbyeong?”

Byeongkwan laughs. “Yeah, that. Wait, how’d you know?”

“Lucky guess. Can I call you Byeongbyeong, too?”

 _“_ I usually don’t care about nicknames. Call me Byeongkwan, BK, Kwan, Kwannie, babe, I don’t care. But you’re not gonna call me my dumb childhood nickname.”

Sehyoon chokes. “Babe?”

“Okay, maybe don’t call me that,” Byeongkwan says, his ears turning red. “And don’t call me the name I went by last year, either.”

“Jas—?”

 _"Don’t.”_ Byeongkwan’s knuckles whiten as he tightens his grip on the handle of his rake and takes a deep breath. “We’re done with this part of the yard. You get the leaves on the left side of his house, and I’ll get the leaves on the right side.”

Sehyoon frowns upon seeing his pained expression, but before he can say anything, Byeongkwan is already walking away with his rake over his shoulder.

They eventually finish tidying up Mr. Bass’s yard and knock on his door to let him know that they’re done.

“Thank you so much,” Mr. Bass says as he hands a five-dollar bill to each of them, noticeably less cold towards Sehyoon. “You two work so well together. You should make him your new partner, Byeongbyeong.”

“Maybe I will. How would you feel about being my partner, Yoon?” Byeongkwan winks at him.

Sehyoon laughs nervously and scratches the nape of his neck. Something about the tone of his voice makes him feel as if he isn’t just using the term in a business sense. “I don’t know about that.”

“You sure? I wouldn’t mind doing this with you again.” Byeongkwan withdraws a small piece of cardstock from his pocket and gives it to Mr. Bass. “He’s our business card, in case you know anyone else who would be interested in our services today. Sorry if it looks a little unprofessional—I had to make some last-minute adjustments to prevent false advertising.”   
  


Mr. Bass blinks. “Um, okay. Anyways, I forgot to ask—do you need the money for anything in particular? I can pitch in a little more, if you want.”

“We’re trying to buy an art tablet,” Byeongkwan says. “It’s a certain person’s birthday soon.”

“Oh, really? Happy early birthday, Sehyoon,” Mr. Bass says, looking at the paint splotches on his sweatshirt.

Byeongkwan raises one eyebrow in confusion and then both upon realization. “Actually, we’re getting the tablet for Seonkwan’s birthday. We’ll be celebrating with him when he comes back in a few days.”

“Ah, Sunny! Tell him to stop by sometime this weekend. So, how much does the tablet cost? I can pay for the rest of it.”

“No, no, we’ll earn the money ourselves. We’re not gonna empty out your wallet.” Byeongkwan smiles at Sehyoon. “Unlike someone we know,” he adds under his breath, squeezing his hand.

“If you insist,” Mr. Bass says. “I hope you guys raise enough money in time. Have a good day!”

Byeongkwan and Sehyoon pack their tools back into the trunk of the former’s car and strap themselves in.

“I can buy you an art tablet,” Byeongkwan says as he starts his car.

“Buy me a _what?”_

“I can buy you an art—”

“No, I heard what you said, it’s just… No. You know how much those things cost. I don’t need an art tablet,” Sehyoon says.

“But do you _want_ an art tablet?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Look, you bought something for me, so why can’t I do the same for you?” Byeongkwan pouts.

“An americano isn’t the same as a Wacom Cintiq Pro.”

“So, is that the kind of tablet you want?”

_“You can’t buy me an art tablet.”_

“You can't tell me what I can or can’t do.”

Sehyoon sighs. “Why are you so…”

 _Caring. Compassionate. Amazing. Incredible._ _Just flat-out nice, especially to someone like me._

“...You’re so… Why are you always doing stuff like this?”

“Would you rather I make fun of your appearance and destroy your sense of self-worth every time you try to talk to me?” Byeongkwan punches Sehyoon’s arm a little too hard and laughs a little too loudly. When Sehyoon sees the brightness in his eyes, he isn’t sure if they’re shining with happiness or watering. “Let’s stop by at this house next. The owner’s dogs usually need to be walked.” He parks his car, gets out, and opens the door for Sehyoon.

“Is that what someone…? Does someone really…? Who…?” Sehyoon desperately tries to finish one of his questions, but his stormy sea of thoughts evaporates into the air and disperses like mist.

Byeongkwan turns towards the house. “She has five dogs, and they’re all pretty cute. I think it’ll be fun walking them.”

“Kwan…”

“Come on, let’s walk those dogs.” Byeongkwan tries to pull Sehyoon out of his car but he remains glued to the passenger seat. “Come on, _let’s go.”_

Sehyoon looks up at him. “Please talk to someone about yesterday.”

“The dogs are waiting, Yoon.” Byeongkwan tugs on his arm harder.

“Promise me you’ll talk to someone.”

“I don’t need to—”

_“Promise me you’ll talk to someone.”_

“Fine,” Byeongkwan huffs. “I promise I’ll talk to Chan later today.”

“Good.” Sehyoon gets out of his car and follows Byeongkwan to the door.

“When did you get so stubborn?” Byeongkwan asks.

“I think I might have gotten it from this one guy I know,” Sehyoon says. “He has light brown eyes and light brown hair, he hides in lockers, he steals cats, and he buys coffee for people. And he’s about this tall.” Sehyoon puts his hand on Byeongkwan’s head. “And I’m not stubborn, I just want you to be okay.”

Byeongkwan removes his hand from his head, intertwines his fingers with Sehyoon’s, and knocks on the door. “Hello? Ms. Arirang? It’s Byeongkwan. Can we walk your dogs?”

The sound of an old woman’s feeble but sweet voice drifts out of an open window. “Who? I’m not sure I know anyone with that name.”

“It’s Byeongkw—” He looks down and mutters something to himself. “It’s Byeongbyeong.”

Sehyoon grins and Byeongkwan elbows him.

“Oh, Byeongbyeong! The key’s under the empty flower pot on your left,” Ms. Arirang says.

Byeongkwan fishes the key from underneath the pot and unlocks the door.

Several small terriers immediately rush to the door and start nipping at their angles.

“Down, Stuckyi, down!” Byeongkwan commands, gently pushing one of the dogs away with the tip of his sneaker.

“...Stuckyi?”

“Don’t question it.”

“Byeongbyeong! Thank goodness you’re here,” Ms. Arirang says, her knitting needles clicking together as she works on a bright blue scarf (or maybe a sweater with long sleeves? Sehyoon can’t really tell). “My granddaughter’s out for the day so she can’t walk my babies, and the doc says my hip won’t be good for another week. They’re all trained—well, mostly; Anishida has a little trouble, sometimes—so I don’t have any problems with the potty part of it all, but they’ve been bouncing off the walls the whole day. Can you take them out for a while? Thirty or forty minutes should be good.”

“Yes, of course,” Byeongkwan says. “You don’t mind a longer walk, do you, Yoon?”

“Oh! Are you Sehyoon?” Unlike Mr. Bass’s initial reaction to his identity, Ms. Arirang is beaming. “It’s so lovely to meet you. Byeongbyeong’s grandmother told me what he said about you a month ago, if I recall.”

“Really? What did she s—”

“I would love to hear my grandma’s interpretation of what I told her,” Byeongkwan interrupts, “but we don’t want to have any accidents, do we?” He attaches all five leashes—red, blue, purple, orange, and yellow—to the dogs’ collars as quickly as he can and practically drags Sehyoon out of Ms. Arirang’s house.

“You talked about me with your grandmother _before_ the skating competition?” Sehyoon asks, taking a hold of the red and blue leashes. What could he have possibly told her, and why is he acting so weird about it?

“Yes, yes I did. I guess she never gave Ms. Arirang an update, though,” Byeongkwan says, looking away. “I try to visit my grandma as often as possible so that I don’t forget Korean. Whenever I see her, we talk about things we’re looking forward to.”

“There’s nothing about me to look forward to, though.”

“That’s a lie. Sure, you’re not the most energetic person in the whole world, but you’re still interesting. Don’t _you_ look forward to becoming friends with someone?”

“Do I look forward to friendship? Maybe. Am I riddled with overwhelming anxiety at the thought of it? Definitely. And I don’t have much experience with that to begin with, so I’m probably not the best person to ask that question,” Sehyoon says, trying his best to walk the dogs and keep the dogs from walking him. 

“Before me, when was the last time you made a friend?”

“I met Donghun… let’s see, three, eight… ten years ago, two years after I met Jun.”

Byeongkwan pulls one of the dogs away from a rusty fire hydrant. “And you haven’t become friends with anyone else?” 

“I’ve always had them, and they’ve always had me, so I didn’t see why I would need anyone else. Then they started having each other a lot more, and I guess… I don’t know, it’s weird being the third wheel, you know? Even before they officially got together, I felt like I was…”

“Interrupting something?”

“Yeah, that. It took some time, but I accepted that they’ll never treat me like they treat each other. Even when Jun and I ‘dated’”—Sehyoon holds up air quotes—“for a week during freshman year, I could still tell he liked Donghun more than he liked me. And then after we broke up, everything went back to being… well.”

“Awkward.”

“Really awkward,” Sehyoon sighs. “I’ve never been that good at making new friends or dealing with big changes in general. Even when I was younger, I had trouble talking to Donghun for those first few months. Junhee cried a few times because he thought we hated each other and we actually had to tell him we didn’t. And now, all these years later, the same thing happened with you. I’m still sorry for being weird. Maybe it’s my anxiety speaking, but change is intimidating. New friends are intimidating.”

“How am I intimidating?” Byeongkwan asks. “I’m one of the least intimidating people alive.”

“You put a hit out on a group of seniors when you were fourteen, you’re friends with half of the student body, you’re the captain of the cheerleading squad, and you could probably crush my head with your thighs. I’d say you’re pretty damn intimidating.”

“Wanna test that last one?” Byeongkwan smirks. He laughs when Sehyoon’s eyes widen.

“See? That’s another reason. The way you talk, the way you can just say things like that—everything about you is intimidating.”

“You just have to do what I do and try to be more intimidating than whoever you’re intimidated by. Then you won’t be that intimidated.”

“With you, that’s impossible.”

“Come on, try,” Byeongkwan urges.

Sehyoon straightens (perhaps not the best term for this situation) his back and looks him in the eye. “I… Um… So, _babe_ ,” he begins, his mouth becoming dry, “I think you would look, uh, really pretty sucking my… my d—”

“ _Not like that!”_ Byeongkwan puts his hand over Sehyoon’s mouth, his face completely red and his eyebrows nearly meeting his hairline. “You know I’m joking when I say stuff like that, right?”

“What? Yeah, I know.”

“Good, because you looked like you were serious.”

“Oh. I wasn’t. I don’t…” Sehyoon swallows. “I don’t like you that way.”

“Neither do I.”

“Cool.”

“Cool,” Byeongkwan echoes, his face devoid of emotion.

One of the dogs attempts to go after a squirrel and Sehyoon tightens his grip on its leash. “No, stay back, Ani…? Anishi…? What are the dogs’ names, anyways? You kind of pulled me out before Ms. Arirang could tell me.”

“The one with the red leash is Monstera, and the one with the blue leash is Yulma. I’ve got Lavender, Stuckyi, and Anishida.” Byeongkwan holds up the purple, orange, and yellow leashes, respectively.

“Those are some interesting names.”

“She’s into botany,” Byeongkwan shrugs. “She likes sharing her plant knowledge with her neighbors, including my grandma. Speaking of whom, her house is on this block. Do you mind if we pay her a visit?”

“No, not at all,” Sehyoon says, desperately hoping that Byeongkwan’s grandmother forgot about “Dongjun.” He nervously licks his lips as Byeongkwan knocks on the door of her cottage.

“Hi! We were in your part of the neighborhood, so we thought we’d stop by,” Byeongkwan says once his grandmother opens the door.

Byeongkwan’s grandmother squints at Sehyoon. “Have I met you before?”

“I don’t think you have. This is my friend Seh— _Sehyoon?”_

Before he can properly introduce him, he’s already running to the end of the block as fast as Yulma and Monstera’s short legs allow.

“Sorry, they’re dragging me along!” Sehyoon halfheartedly shouts. “They’re really strong!”

“They’re ten pounds each, Yoon!” Byeongkwan shouts back.

 _“They’re really strong!_ You’ll have to catch me!”

“Since when am _I_ the one catching _you?”_

“Don’t be so intimidated by change, Kwan! Take your own advice!”

“You—” 

_“Catch me!”_

* * *

Three lawns, two weed-ridden gardens, and forty dollars later, Sehyoon slips into his house through the back door.

“Where the hell were you?” Eunsuh demands. 

“Um, with Kwan. Didn’t you see my note?”

“Yeah, we did. Mom and Dad thought you eloped,” Eunsuh says. “They’ve been hysterical the whole morning. They called up Byeongkwan’s parents and it turns out that he didn’t bother to elaborate, either.”

 _“Eloped._ They thought we _eloped.”_

“I had to stop them from filing a missing person report, too. They’re upstairs, if you want to explain yourself. Give them a warning the next time you go on a date, alright?”

“It wasn’t a date.”

“Sure.”

“We’re not together.”

“Sure.”

“He isn’t interested in me like that!”

_“Sure.”_

* * *

Sehyoon can’t say he’s surprised when Yuchan latches onto him from behind on his way to the courtyard and drags him into a classroom. _Again_. (Albeit with less noisy sneakers this time.)

“Was that really necessary?” he sighs, rubbing his arm where Yuchan grabbed it. “If you keep this up, you’re going to end up putting someone in the ER someday.”

“No, but it’s fun. I brought you here to tell you that you have a little over three hours to talk to Kwan. Or else… Well, you know what happens if you don’t.”

Sehyoon raises an eyebrow. “But I already did? I met up with him on Saturday at Brew Interactive, and I was with him for a while yesterday. Did he not tell you?”

“Wait, but I thought—ohhh, that was _you!”_ Yuchan grins. “Everything makes so much more sense now. I thought he was talking about—uh, never mind. Forget I said anything.”

“About what?”

“It’s not important,” Yuchan says, waving his hand dismissively. “So, I take it that you two had fun? From the way he was talking about your dates, it sounded like he wanted to be with you for a few more hours.”

“Yeah.” Sehyoon looks down and smiles to himself. “Yeah, we had fun. They weren't dates, though. We were just hanging out,” he quickly adds.

“Hanging out, dating—whatever, I’m just glad you guys are back together. Anyways, I’ll call off our plan.” Yuchan takes out his phone. “...Uh oh.”

“What do you mean, ‘uh oh’?” 

“It looks like I was wrong about the amount of time you have left. Jun just told me he’s going to tell Hun about your crush in seven minutes.”

“But he won’t, right? Since I made up with Byeongkwan. I don’t see what the problem is. All you have to do is text him that we’re friends again.”

“Here’s the thing,” Yuchan hesitantly begins. “We agreed that if one of us were to call off our plan, we would have to give the other a password. That way, it would be impossible for you to try to interfere and trick one of us into thinking the other called it off.”

“Okay, then tell him the password.”

“I don’t know what it is.”

_“What.”_

“I wrote it down on a piece of paper, and that piece of paper is at my house. If we had three hours left, I could give him the password before he told Hun,” Yuchan explains.

“And you don’t remember what the password is?” Sehyoon asks, dumbfounded.

“No, not really.”

“You’re kidding me. Come on, you have to remember _something.”_

“Umm…” Yuchan squeezes his eyes shut and rubs his temples. “Um, I think it’s… Hold on… It’s something Byeongkwan told me when we were younger.”

“Alright, we’re getting somewhere. There’s four minutes left. Shit. What else do you remember?”

“I don’t know, give me random topics, maybe?”

“Life advice?” Sehyoon guesses. “Something about his name? Physical appearance? Hobbies? Family?”

“No, no, it’s… I think it’s about his favorite… one of his favorite things?”

“Books? Sports? Video games? Colors? Movies? Food?”

Yuchan’s eyes fly open. “Food! It’s something about his favorite food.”

“This feels like a game of Hedbanz with the stakes of poker,” Sehyoon mutters. “Instant ramen? Hamburgers? Pizza rolls? Fries? Avocado toast? Cherries? Cake? Cookies? Frozen yogurt? Beef? Pork? Chicken? Turkey?”

“What was that last one?”

“Turkey?”

“No, the one before.” Yuchan begins to pace around the room.

“Chicken?”

“Yes, that’s it! It’s chicken. Chicken is… Chicken is…?”

“Two minutes. Crispy? Chicken is crispy. Chicken is delicious. Chicken is good. Chicken is tasty,” Sehyoon says. With every guess, he sounds more and more like he’s reciting a KFC advertisement meant to brainwash potential customers. “Chicken is fried. Chicken is roasted. Chicken is grilled.”

“Wait, what’s another word for fate?” Yuchan suddenly asks.

“...Destiny?”

 _“Destiny!”_ Yuchan turns on his phone and calls Junhee, jumping up and down with every ring. “Come on, pick up, pick up, pick up…”

After a few stressful seconds, Junhee answers his call. “Chan? I’m about to tell—” 

“ _Chicken is destiny_!” Yuchan shrieks and immediately hangs up. “Phew, that was close. Your secret’s safe with us now.”

Sehyoon blinks. “The password is ‘chicken is destiny’.”

“Yep.”

_“Chicken is destiny.”_

“Yep, that’s the password.”

“I’m not gonna ask,” he says. “Uh, thanks for not completely ruining my life, I guess.”

Yuchan trails after him after he leaves the classroom. “And thanks for taking my friend out on two wonderful dates. Hey, are you heading to the courtyard?”

“Yeah,” Sehyoon replies. “And for the last time, they weren't dates.”

“But they could’ve been. I can be your wingman. Hun doesn’t know, Jun’s always busy with his own love life, and you don’t have any other friends, so I’m the perfect choice.”

“Um, how many relationships have you been in?”

“A grand total of zero,” Yuchan proudly answers, making a circle with his hand.

“I’m going to have to decline your offer.”

“Why? I’ve always been a great wingman for guys who are interested in Kwan. I’ve only messed up once. Uh, maybe twice. There was also that other guy—okay, the success rate is around forty percent. I’d take those chances, if I were you.”

“I’m content with us staying friends. If something happens, then something happens. I don’t want to actively pursue a relationship with him.”

Yuchan presses his lips together. “Alright. But if you ever change your mind, I’ll be glad to be of service.” He suddenly freezes and thrusts his arm in front of Sehyoon to keep him from moving forward. “Do you hear that?”

Sehyoon furrows his eyebrows. “Hear what? I don’t—”

“ _Shhhh.”_

The two of them stand quietly, the only thing preventing it from being completely silent being—Sehyoon strains his ears, that can’t be right—faint barking?

“That’s a dog,” Yuchan whispers. “That’s a dog, _that’s a dog!”_

He throws the door open. As soon as they enter the courtyard, a silver car pulls up to the curb and a woman steps out. She opens the passenger door and a fluffy dog launches off of the seat.

 _“PUPPY!”_ Yuchan screeches at the top of his lungs as the chow chow barrels towards him and rams his entire sixty-pound body into his shins. “Hi, Lion! Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy? You are, yes you are, you’re the best puppy in the whole _universe_.” 

Lion flops to his side and leaves his belly exposed for Yuchan to pet, and he does so gladly, running his fingers through the tufts of fur and cooing praises into his ears. Sehyoon smiles and crouches to scratch his chin.

At a nearby table, Junhee stands up, runs towards the woman, and wraps her in a warm embrace. “Jaekyung! What are you doing here? I thought you would arrive on Thursday. Is Eunjae here too?”

“My classes ended early, and I managed to reschedule my flight,” Jaekyung says. “Eunjae’s still caught up with work, though. She’ll be here on Thursday, maybe Wednesday night if we’re lucky. I just wanted to stop by my old school. Do you think I should say hi to my teachers? I don’t want to interrupt their day.”

Junhee laughs. “No, I’m not sure they want to see former student body president Jaehyung Park, valedictorian of her class, prized Model UN member, and debate team champion.”

“Alright, I get it, I’ll say hi to them. How’s student council, by the way? Did you ever manage to get a panini press for the cafeteria?”

“We had it for a week until the boys’ a capella group tried to heat up a pair of socks.” Junhee turns towards Donghun, who’s joined Yuchan and Sehyoon in showering Lion with affection. “I still haven’t forgiven you for that. It took six years to convince the school board to give us that press, Hun. _Six years.”_

“Jongho’s socks were cold and we were bored, what else were we supposed to do?” 

Junhee shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. “ _Not_ cook a pair of socks in a brand new panini press?”

“It serves you right for what you did on that camping trip.”

“That was over three years ago, and it was an accident, it’s not like—”

“Speaking of camping trips,” Jaekyung interrupts, “Mom and Dad have to leave for their business trip on Saturday, so Eunjae and I are in charge for the weekend. But we both want to meet up with some of our friends, and we don’t want you cooped up in the house all day, so we thought you could take some of your friends camping by that site we used to go to. Can we trust you?”

“Absolutely not,” Donghun says.

Junhee shoots him a look. “I’ll make sure that everyone stays together and gets back in one piece.”

“You better, I almost _died_ the last time.”

Jaekyung raises her eyebrows but decides not to speak on the matter. “Anyways, I’ll go see if they’ll let me in. Have fun with Lion, in the meantime. I think there’s a frisbee in the backseat. Oh, and tell Byeongkwan I said hello when he wakes up.” Jaekyung waves goodbye and heads to the main entrance.

Junhee walks to her car, takes the frisbee, and throws it at Donghun, who narrowly avoids being hit in the forehead.

“Hey, I could use a warning,” he says, picking up the frisbee when Lion fetches it and drops it at his feet. The four boys spread out and he sends it towards Yuchan in a perfect arc.

“Do you think we should wake him up?” Yuchan gestures towards Byeongkwan, who’s leaning against the table, his head slightly tilted back as he softly snores. He stirs in his sleep as an orange leaf brushes against his cheek and settles in between the pages of the book on his lap.

“Nah, let him sleep,” Junhee says. “That history test was exhausting. I feel like I’m gonna pass out any minute.”

“Well, hopefully you don’t. Here, catch!” Yuchan throws the frisbee at him, and it wobbles as it soars through the air. He laughs as Lion jumps up to try to intercept it, his teeth just barely grazing the rim.

Junhee sends it towards Sehyoon, and he has to reach up to receive it. “Okay, Donghun, are you ready this time?” he asks.

“See, that’s how you’re supposed to do it,” Donghun says. “You can’t just nearly give someone a concussion like that.”

“Can you two leave each other alone for five seconds?” Sehyoon sighs, and throws the frisbee at Donghun.

However, instead of gliding towards him, or anywhere remotely close to him, or even towards Lion, Junhee, or Yuchan, the frisbee collides with Byeongkwan.

Byeongkwan’s face, to be specific.

Sehyoon’s soul leaves his body as he and the others rush towards him.

“Holy shit, Kwan, are you okay?” Junhee asks.

Byeongkwan’s eyelids flutter open and he rubs his nose. “Yeah, I’m fine. My nose burns a little bit, that’s all. Were you the one who hit me, Yoon? You should see the look on your face,” he giggles as blood begins pouring from his nostrils.

Sehyoon’s eyes widen. “You, uh, you have a little something there.”

“Is something wrong? My face feels a little funny. Do I have drool on my mouth?” he asks, completely oblivious to the red fluid dribbling down his chin and forming a small puddle on his book. “Oh, Lion’s here! Hi, Lion!” Byeongkwan smiles at the dog, now contently gnawing on the neglected frisbee.

“We should… We should get you to the nurse,” Junhee mumbles, his face growing paler by the second.

Byeongkwan frowns and tilts his head, causing the blood to start running down his cheek. “Jun, are you okay? You look a little nauseous. Don’t worry, I’m sure you did fine on the history test.”

Junhee sways and collapses onto the ground.

Yuchan screams and gets on his knees to put his ear on his chest. “There’s no heartbeat. He… He’s dead. _He’s dead_ ,” he whispers in horror. “Junhee’s dead.”

“His heart’s on the other side,” Donghun says, blankly staring at him.

Yuchan moves his head and his eyes light up. “He’s alive! Junhee’s alive!” he announces.

Donghun facepalms.

Byeongkwan wipes his chin with his hand and looks at his bloody fingers. “Is my nose bleeding?”

“A little bit, yeah,” Sehyoon weakly replies. “We should really get you to the nurse’s office.”

“Guys, how are we gonna wake Jun up?” Yuchan asks. “I don’t want to leave him here. Oh, I know! Maybe an act of true love will do the trick! Hun, can you please do the honors?”

Donghun bends down and slaps Junhee.

_“Hun.”_

Donghun slaps him harder. “Sorry, he’s out cold.”

 _“Hun!”_ Yuchan grabs Donghun’s wrist when he raises his hand to slap him again. “It’s obviously not working!”

“Damn, I thought it would. Chan, you get his legs, and I’ll get his arms. Sehyoon, you help Byeongkwan to the door. Byeongkwan, you… Just try not to get blood everywhere, okay?”

“I think it’s too late for that,” Byeongkwan says, peering at the front of his formerly-white sweater. “Hey, Yoon, can you carry me?”

“Um, sure?”

Byeongkwan jumps onto his back, Donghun and Yuchan take a hold of Junhee’s limbs, and the party awkwardly shuffles to the door.

“Lion, sit. Be a good boy and stay here,” Donghun orders when Lion tries to follow him. The dog whines but obeys.

“Hey, can someone let us in?” Sehyoon asks, kicking the door until some poor freshman opens it. As to be expected, they earn some odd glances as they walk through the hallways. Yuchan drops Junhee’s legs to open the door to the nurse’s office, leaving Donghun to drag him in, not unlike how a tired child would drag his teddy bear into his parents’ bedroom at three in the morning to tell them he threw up.

“Hello, how can I help you?” Ms. Gallery looks up from her desk. “Oh my. Oh dear. Can you help me carry him to the cot?” she asks, pointing at Junhee. “And you, follow me to the back and we’ll get you cleaned up. You two can sit there and wait.”

Byeongkwan gets off of Sehyoon’s back and starts helping Donghun drag Junhee when another person enters the office.

“Hi, Ms. Gallery, I wanted to drop by to say…” Jaekyung’s voice trails off as her gaze lands on her unconscious brother and Byeongkwan’s bloody face and sweater. “Ah, I see you’re a little, ahem,  _ busy. _ I’ll come back later. Um, can you guys tell Junhee that I can cancel my weekend plans? Maybe you guys shouldn’t go on the trip. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“No, we’re good, we’ll be responsible,” Yuchan says. “We can be responsible, right, guys?”

Sehyoon, Donghun, and Byeongkwan remain silent.

“Come on, who’s with me?”

“We can be responsible,” Sehyoon slowly says, the words not sounding quite right. “Yeah, we can be responsible,” he repeats, a little more confident. “We’ll be fine. Everything will go smoothly.”

(That, of course, is a lie.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not spoiling anything, but the next chapter is one of my favorites T^T I wish I could go camping (it's also the longest so far at a whopping 10k) (uhhhh I think this fic is gonna be more than a little over 60k)
> 
> also!!!!!!!!!! I did [a thing](https://twitter.com/garbage_OwO/status/1280955559278247939)!!!! hopefully you find it cute
> 
> aaaand here’s [a decidedly less cute thing](https://twitter.com/garbage_OwO/status/1283130185496375297) :DDDD


	7. Too Late To Back Away Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw // murder description (no I am not joking) (it’s only a campfire story but just in case)
> 
> alrighty folks, it's time for my favorite chapter (so far, at least... maybe I'll like future chapters more) with one of my favorite scenes (you'll know what it is once you get to it) (hopefully)
> 
> I wrote this a few months back before channie film was released so photography enthusiast yuchan is not a thing,,,, sorry (I gave the photography enthusiast role to hun instead because of the callin’ mv)
> 
> also also also I'm sorry that this is kinda late skdjhfskdjhfksj I'm working on a lotta oneshots

They are not fine, and everything is not going smoothly.

This is Sehyoon’s first thought as soon as they cram their belongings into Mrs. Park’s minivan and realize there isn’t enough space for all five of them.

“Either your sack of plushies goes, or you do. I already got rid of my flashlights. You can get rid of your stuffed animals,” Junhee says.

“But Kirby,” Byeongkwan whines. “What about all my Kirby plushies?”

Junhee takes a hold of the other handle of the cooler and helps Sehyoon haul it into the trunk. “One. You can keep _one_ plushie. No more, no fewer.”

Byeongkwan pouts. “Fine.” He takes his bag of stuffed animals into Junhee’s house and returns with a singular Kirby plushie.

“Must you bring your sketchbook?” Donghun asks, removing an extra sleeping bag from the backseat and haphazardly tossing it onto the pile of non-essentials.

“Drawing helps me fall asleep.” Sehyoon defensively clutches his sketchbook to his chest. “Plus, it barely takes up any space in my backpack.”

“That’s exactly what Jun said about his ten extra flashlights.”

Junhee slams the trunk shut. “I think that’s everything. Let’s bring all this stuff inside, and then we’ll be on our way. Hold on, Chan, what did you just put inside your backpack?”

“Nothing.”

Junhee grabs his backpack and empties it out. Out fall a flashlight, a box of trail mix, a pair of fuzzy socks, several chocolate bars, two packets of Skittles®, a few bags of fruit snacks, four tangerines, an AirPods case, and a Nintendo Switch™. “You’re not bringing your Switch.”

“Yes I am. My neighbors _need_ me,” Yuchan insists. “Who else is gonna catch fish for Blathers and decorate my island with pretty flowers? No one, that’s who.”

“Your neighbors can live without you for one day,” Junhee sighs. He and the others transfer the rest of the non-essentials (including Yuchan’s Switch) to his house and pile into the minivan.

Well, four of them do.

“Unless you wanna tie me to the roof, there’s nowhere I can sit,” Byeongkwan says. 

“Crap, is there anything else we can leave?” Junhee asks.

Donghun turns to look at the fully-occupied backseat. “If you’re okay with sleeping on the cold hard ground, then yeah, we can get rid of the sleeping bags.”

“I have an idea,” Yuchan pipes up. “You can sit on Sehyoon’s lap.”

Sehyoon chokes on his spit. “There has to be another option. Seriously, what if we get pulled over?”

“I don’t think there’s anything else we can do,” Junhee says. “Kwan, do you think you’ll be comfortable?”

“I’ll be comfortable. Don’t worry, Yoon, I’m not that heavy,” Byeongkwan laughs as he climbs onto his lap.

Sehyoon hides his face in his jacket and tries to avoid thinking about his ass for the entire one-hour ride, but the numerous potholes along the way throw a wrench in his plan. “Are you doing that on purpose?” he asks indignantly.

“Doing what?” Junhee responds as he turns onto a particularly bumpy road.

Sehyoon yelps as the car shakes and his crotch makes contact with Byeongkwan’s ass yet again. “You couldn’t have chosen a different route?”

“Yeah, Jun, it’s getting annoying,” Yuchan complains, picking up his Skittles® from the floor.

“I’m sorry, but they don't really pave the roads around here too often,” Junhee says. “We’re almost there. I’m sure you can wait a few more minutes.”

Byeongkwan shifts his position and Sehyoon tries not to scream.

Finally, after an hour and an additional fifteen minutes from traffic, they arrive at a parking lot at the edge of the woods. Sehyoon takes a deep breath as Byeongkwan pushes the door open and gets off his lap.

“Um, Jun, where exactly is the camping site?” Yuchan asks after they load their supplies out of the minivan.

“There’s a small clearing in the woods. We’ll have to walk there.”

“ _Walk_ there?” Yuchan squawks. “You want us to carry all this and _walk there?”_

Donghun picks up the sleeping bags and reluctantly starts following the trail into the woods. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

“It’s seven minutes, you’ll be fine,” Junhee says, unfolding his map. 

The other three distribute the camping supplies amongst themselves and embark on the trail. They take a quick break four minutes into the walk and Sehyoon ends up carrying most of the supplies for the rest of the trip.

Once they arrive at the clearing, Donghun drops the sleeping bags, removes his camera from his backpack, and begins taking pictures. “I forgot how much I missed this place.” He looks down and grins at his camera. “It’s beautiful.”

Sehyoon looks around and drinks in the scenery. Despite it being November, most of the grass is green, and the autumn chill feels crisp rather than numbing. In contrast, the leaves above them gently sway and drift to the ground in vivid shades of red, orange, and yellow. Off in the distance, a woodpecker rhythmically strikes its beak against a tree. He closes his eyes to focus on the sound. The woodpecker becomes a natural metronome for a nearby brook, which babbles in time with its continuous _tap tap tap_.

Someone softly nudges his shoulder and he opens his eyes.

“Hey, are you gonna help us set up?” Byeongkwan asks.

Sehyoon nods, still half-immersed in his thoughts.

Junhee takes the instruction manual off of one of the poles. “So… Is anyone good at pitching tents?”

“It depends on how visually or physically stimulated I am,” Byeongkwan says, wiggling his eyebrows.

Junhee sighs, exasperated. “Just help me build the damn tent.”

Donghun rests his chin on Junhee’s shoulder and squints at the manual. “We might have a problem with that. I don’t think any of us are fluent in Swedish.”

“It’s okay, we can follow the diagrams,” Junhee reassures.

Donghun grabs the manual to further inspect it. “These are instructions for assembling a bookcase.”

“No way, let me see that, it can’t—uh, it looks like we’ll have to figure things out for ourselves,” Junhee says, picking up one of the rods for the frame of the tent. “We all know what a tent looks like, right?”

Ten minutes later, they discover that no, none of them knows what a tent looks like, apparently.

“Hold on, I think we’re supposed to connect these two parts.” Sehyoon tries to attach the ends of the rods together.

“We already tried to do it that way,” Byeongkwan says and puts his hands on Sehyoon’s to help him arrange the rods correctly. They soon snap into place.

“Thanks,” Sehyoon mutters, his eyes fixated on Byeongkwan’s thumb as he rubs it against the back of his hand.

“Alright, we’ve got the frame all set up,” Donghun says. “Where’d the cover go?”

“Uh.” Sehyoon points over Donghun’s shoulder at Yuchan.

“Give it back! _We need that!”_ Junhee yells, sprinting after Yuchan, who has the cover for one of the tents tied around his neck like a cape.

“That’s what you get for making me drop my Skittles!” Yuchan blows a raspberry at him and hands the cover to Byeongkwan. “Come on, _go!”_

Without hesitation, Byeongkwan darts into the woods, whipping the cover around like a ballerina with a ribbon.

Junhee falls to his knees, panting. “Please… One of you… Get him…”

Yuchan laughs. “I thought being a grandpa was Hun’s job.”

Junhee says nothing and flops onto his back.

“Well, _I’m_ not doing it,” Donghun says, staring pointedly at Sehyoon. 

Sehyoon groans and starts lightly jogging after Byeongkwan.

Byeongkwan turns around and grins at him, waving the tent cover like a matador’s cape. “I bet you can’t catch me.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“It’s a promise.”

“We’ll see about that.” Sehyoon runs towards him at full speed.

“Are you really that slow? I’m pretty sure you can—ah, fuck!” Byeongkwan shouts when he glances behind him. He picks up his pace. “Are you secretly part of the track team or something?”

The autumn leaves crunch underfoot as Sehyoon chases him through the woods, leaping over fallen logs and large stones in his path. As he tramples on the weeds lining the barely-discernible trail, dandelion seeds scatter in the wind and dance in and out of the pockets of sunlight created by the trees overhead. Byeongkwan swats the low-hanging branches with the tent cover, causing the leaves to fall off and become stuck in Sehyoon’s hair. His laughter echoes throughout the woods as Sehyoon tries to shake them from his head.

Byeongkwan soon trips on a protruding root, twisting his body and falling face up. Sehyoon trips on the same root and ends up pinning him to the ground, his elbows and knees on either side of his shoulders and hips.

“I caught you,” Sehyoon grins, completely breathless.

Byeongkwan smiles and reaches up to brush the remaining leaves out of his hair. “I suppose you did. It looks like you’re back to catching me, huh?”

“Yeah.” Sehyoon rolls onto his back and for a minute, the two of them lie on the trail, staring up at the clear blue sky and breathing heavily.

Byeongkwan lightly kicks him to get his attention. “Should we get back to the others?”

“Yeah, they’re probably wondering where we are,” Sehyoon says. He turns his head towards him, his bangs fanning out from his face.

Byeongkwan sits up and picks a twig off of his sweater. “I’ll race you.”

“But we just—”

“Try to catch up!” Byeongkwan says, already starting down the path.

Sehyoon sighs and follows him back to the clearing.

“Finally, there you are.” Yuchan twirls one of the poles around like a bo staff. “It was getting kinda boring without— _ow_ _!”_ He winces as he accidentally smacks himself in the forehead.

Junhee snatches the pole away from him and takes the cover from Byeongkwan. “Please don’t injure yourselves. I promised my sisters that I wouldn’t let anyone get hurt, and I fully intend to keep that promise.”

At long last, they assemble both of the tents, but they only stay up until Byeongkwan and Yuchan decide to use two of the poles to have a fencing match.

“Can you go inside and check if it looks okay?” Donghun asks, pushing the last pole into the ground.

Sehyoon unzips the tent and steps inside. “All good. Wait, let me adjust this one part. It’s crooked.”

“Jun, do you think these poles would be good for dueling?” Yuchan suddenly asks.

“Um, probably? Please don’t—”

“En garde!” Yuchan yells, yanking one of the poles out of the ground and jabbing it in Byeongkwan’s direction. Part of the tent caves in.

_“Byeongkwan, don’t you dare—”_

Byeongkwan pulls out another pole to defend himself and the entire tent collapses onto Sehyoon.

“Sehyoon, don’t move,” Junhee instructs. “We’ll get you out of there.”

Sehyoon takes a step forward and immediately falls over.

Donghun looks down at him. “Need help?”

Sehyoon attempts (keyword: attempts) to exit the tent. “Maybe.”

Junhee and Donghun remove the other poles and a couple of stressful minutes later, they manage to help him out of the tent.

After they confiscate the poles from Byeongkwan and Yuchan, they rebuild the tents (thankfully, they stay up this time around) and Junhee picks up his backpack.

“Get your things ready, because we”—he takes a few water bottles out of the cooler—“are going on a hike. There are some great trails around here, and I think you guys are going to love them.” He tosses the water bottles to the others and sprays himself with bug repellent.

“Why?” Byeongkwan asks.

Junhee visibly deflates. _“‘Why?’”_

“I mean, who follows a trail for fun? That sounds boring. Wouldn’t it be more interesting if we walk around and see where nature takes us?”

“Unless you want to get lost, we’re following the trail,” Junhee insists. “We have to stick together. We’re a family.”

A few seconds of awkward silence follow.

Sehyoon stares at him quizzically. “Um… Are we a family? I never really got those vibes.”

“Me neither,” Byeongkwan says.

Yuchan shakes his head. “Same here.”

“If we’re a family, then I’m going to the grocery store for milk and I’m not coming back,” Donghun deadpans.

“Guys, please. It’ll be fun, trust me.”

Donghun crosses his arms. “The last time I trusted you, you tried to kill me.”

“That’s irrelevant,” Junhee says. “And I wasn’t _trying_ to kill you. Now, let’s hike. According to the map, the trail starts by that oak tree with the blue rope. Each of the hiking trails in these woods is supposed to have a different purpose, did you know that? The one marked with red rope is for those who want an adventure. The terrain is a lot more difficult and there’s a lot of climbing involved. The one marked with purple rope represents the call to nature. It’s where most of the wild animals hang out and the leaves of the trees there take the longest to fall. This one is for those who want to tune into their emotions, and—”

While Junhee rambles about tuning into his emotions, Sehyoon tunes him out.

“Hey, Dongdong, can I borrow your camera?” Byeongkwan asks.

“Sure,” Donghun responds. “As long as you don’t waste all the storage.”

Byeongkwan turns the lens towards himself and holds up a peace sign. _Click. Click. Click. Click._ Yuchan slings his arm around his shoulder and photobombs his selfies, his facial expressions becoming more and more ridiculous with every shutter.

“There are a million other things you could photograph,” Donghun says. “If you’re gonna fill up my camera roll, at least fill it up with something pretty.”

“If you say so.” Byeongkwan points the camera at Sehyoon and snaps a photo.

Sehyoon’s face flushes. “He said to fill up his camera roll with something pretty. There’s a cardinal on those branches over there, you could take a few pictures of that.”

“I know,” Byeongkwan says and continues to take photos of Sehyoon, only stopping when Donghun tells him to hand the camera over.

“Focus, focus,” Donghun mutters, zooming in on a pair of finches. “And… There.” _Click._

“Hey, can I go through your pictures later? I might want to draw something,” Sehyoon says.

Before Donghun can reply, Junhee jogs up behind them. “Can you please slow down? You guys are so fast. You’re speed-walking through the whole trail.”

“Aren’t you the captain of the soccer team?” Donghun asks, pausing to point his camera at a thick clump of moss on a tree.

“He’s the goalie. Don’t expect him to have more stamina than a dead leaf,” Yuchan says.

“I’m just trying to enjoy the hike. And it’s different when you’re carrying bug spray and sunscreen and a first aid kit. Since the trail splits here, can we please take a short break?” Junhee removes his Hydro Flask® from his backpack and takes a swig.

“Sure, we’ll let you catch your breath,” Yuchan laughs. “While we wait for you to get your energy back, how about we play a game of hide and seek?”

Junhee frowns as he sits down on a patch of grass. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, we really shouldn’t—”

Yuchan runs into the woods and Byeongkwan puts his hands over his eyes. “One, two, three, four…”

“Should we join in?” Sehyoon asks.

Donghun shrugs and gently puts his camera down. “Sure, I don’t see why not.” They drop their backpacks and leave the trail.

“Wait, guys!” Junhee shouts as they disappear into the woods. “What if you get lost? What if you can’t find me again? _Guys!”_

Sehyoon keeps on walking until Byeongkwan’s counting is just out of earshot. After a minute of aimlessly stumbling around, he begins to recognize the area. If he is where he thinks he is, then he shouldn’t be too far from where some of his favorite middle school memories took place. He looks up and scans the branches of the trees. No, no, nope, not that one… Is it really here? It has to be, there’s the tree with a star carved into the trunk…

His preoccupation causes him to bump into a fraying piece of rope and he steps back, startled. His gaze follows the rope upwards and lands on an old treehouse settled on a pair of sturdy branches. He puts his foot on the bottom rung of the ladder resting against the trunk but freezes when something softly whines behind him. He removes his foot from the rung and quickly turns around.

There, lying on the ground, is a dog, and it starts wagging its tail when he makes eye contact with it. Sehyoon walks over to the dog, and he has the sneaking suspicion it’s been out here on its own for a while—there’s no collar in sight, and its matted fur is covered in what looks like dried blood. He doesn’t pay attention to most of Junhee’s rambles about the woods, but he does remember him mentioning that it’s a popular place for owners who want to get rid of their pets but can’t bring themselves to put them down. The dog whines again and Sehyoon realizes there are prickly burs embedded in its thigh. He gets on his knees and scratches it behind its ears.

“Hey, this might hurt for a bit, but I promise you’ll feel better, okay?” He pets the dog’s head with one hand and carefully plucks the burs from its thigh with the other. “That’s it, good… umm… girl. Good girl.”

Off in the distance, Yuchan shrieks deliriously.

“Ha, I found you!” Byeongkwan laughs.

“Don’t sneak up on me like that, it’s not funny! I thought you were a serial killer!”

“Whatever, just help me look for the others. I thought I saw Yoon somewhere around here.”

“I have to find a new hiding spot,” Sehyoon whispers to the dog. “But I don’t want to abandon you like your owner did. Can you wait here until the game’s over?”

He motions for her to stay put, but instead of following his orders, she trots after him.

“Alright, I guess you can stick with me.” 

Sehyoon keeps an eye out for the others as he weaves between the trees and accidentally kicks a twig. The dog scampers after the stick, picks it up with her teeth, and brings it back to him.

“Oh, you know how to fetch?” Sehyoon asks. He throws the stick and she fetches it again, her tail wagging the whole time. “Hmm, you need a name. How about… I know! Since you’re grey, can I call you Grace?”

The dog barks happily in response.

“Okay, Grace, fetch!” Every time he throws the stick, she drops it at his feet without fail, and he rewards her with chin scratches and belly rubs. After playing fetch with her for a few minutes, he pockets the stick and starts making his way through the woods again.

“Can I talk to you about something?”

She circles around his legs and looks up at him.

“I’ll take that as a yes. So, there’s this guy I like,” Sehyoon begins, “and I never know what he’s thinking. He likes giving hugs and he… I don’t know, he touches me a lot? He’s weird like that—he’s always touching my hair or my shoulder or something. And he always smiles when he says my name, and he thinks I’m pretty. Do you think…” The corners of his lips turn upwards. “Do you think he likes me back?”

He sighs and puts his hands in his pockets. 

“Argh, what am I saying? There’s no way he likes me. There’s nothing about me for him to like. It would be nice if he returned my feelings, though. Really nice. There’s no way in hell that’s ever gonna happen, but a guy can dream.” He looks up at the sky. “Why does this have to be so complicated? Can’t I just go up to him and say ‘Hey, Byeongkwan Kim, I’ve had a crush on you for three years. Wanna go out with me on Friday?’ And then he doesn’t laugh at me or hate me for liking him. I just wish everything could be simple. I ask him out, and if he says yes, then we go on a date. If he says no, then we stay friends and nothing changes. What are your thoughts, Grace?”

Grace sniffs a dandelion and pees on it.

“I’m talking to a dog,” Sehyoon says. “I’m asking a dog for help with my love life. Maybe I should give up my hiding spot.”

“Hey, Yoon!” Byeongkwan shouts. “It’s been twenty minutes, where are you? You can come out now.”

Sehyoon steps back onto the trail where Donghun, Byeongkwan, and Yuchan are waiting.

“Ah, there you are! We’ve looked everywhere for—” Byeongkwan becomes paralyzed when he sees Grace.

“I found a dog while I was hiding, and she was injured, so I helped her,” Sehyoon explains. “I think her owner left her here. Her name is Grace. Get it, Grace? Like greys? Since her fur is a bunch of different shades of grey. I know I’m asking for a lot, but can we keep her with us for the rest of the trip? We can take her to a shelter on our way back home.”

“Sehyoon,” Donghun says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Sehyoon, that’s not a dog.”

Sehyoon tilts his head. “But she is? She’s one of the best dogs I’ve ever met. Isn’t that right, Grace?” He smiles as Grace licks his hand.

“ _That”_ —Byeongkwan points a shaky finger at Grace—“is a wolf. You’re standing next to a wolf.”

“She’s not a wolf. She’s a husky, I think. Maybe she’s part wolf. Or half wolf. Okay, fine, there’s the possibility she’s a full-blooded wolf. I don’t see what difference that makes.”

Donghun stares at him, completely expressionless. “We can’t let a wild animal stay with us.”

“Can we keep her? Please?” Yuchan pleads. “She’s so cute.”

“She’s a wolf!” Donghun throws his hands up in the air. “ _A wolf!_ I’m not letting a wolf into my tent!”

“But—”

“She’s. A. _Wolf_ ,” Donghun repeats. “Say goodbye to Grace, Sehyoon, because we’re not taking her with us.”

Sehyoon reluctantly bends down and looks the wolf in the eye. “I’m so sorry, but we have to leave you here. Will you be okay on your own?”

Grace whimpers and places her front paw on his knee.

“Trust me, I’m the last person who wants to do this. It’s Donghun’s fault, not mine,” he mutters.

“I heard that!”

Sehyoon gets up, takes the stick out of his pocket, and throws it as far into the woods as he can. “Go fetch.”

Grace chases after the stick, never to be seen again.

“Thank you. Alright, let’s start hiking again,” Donghun says, walking past a tree with blue rope.

A bird whistles nearby and Yuchan tries to mimic it. It whistles back and Byeongkwan whistles the same tune, only higher.

“Oh, it’s _on._ ”

The two of them go back and forth, making the pitch higher and higher until Donghun turns around and shushes them, his hands over his ears. “Cut that out.”

“Fine, but I don’t want to hike in silence,” Yuchan huffs. “Uhh… Here, I spy with my little eye something… something... ? Something bitter.”

“Is it one of those berries over there?” Sehyoon guesses. “The berries on that bush look bitter.” He picks a few of them off and pops them into his mouth. “Huh, they’re actually pretty sweet.”

Donghun opens his mouth to say something but remains quiet as he takes more berries and puts them in his pockets.

“I’ll give you another hint. I spy something... sweet,” Yuchan says.

“Wait, so it’s bitter _and_ sweet?” Sehyoon asks.

“Yep.”

Sehyoon looks around at his surroundings. “That makes no sense. What’s bitter and sweet?”

“I spy something that looks like a puppy,” Yuchan adds.

Sehyoon’s eyes light up. “Grace? Do you see Grace?”

“Nope, guess again.”

Donghun raises an eyebrow at Yuchan. “...Is it me?”

“Bingo! Okay, someone else go.”

“Um, guys?” Byeongkwan runs his fingers over a faded rope tied to a branch, more greyish-purple than blue. “Where exactly are we?”

“Well, I don’t have the map. You’ll have to ask—”

All four of them stop in the middle of the trail.

“—Junhee.” 

“We left Junhee,” Yuchan murmurs. _“Shit, we left Junhee!”_

“Does anyone know where we are right now? Is the place where we left him nearby?” Byeongkwan asks, beginning to panic.

“We lost him! I can’t believe we lost him!”

“Calm down, I’m sure he’s not that far away.” Despite Donghun’s soft tone, his voice is coated with worry. “Let’s just call his name and see if he responds. Hey, Jun!”

“Junhee!”

“Jun!”

“Junhee Park!”

“Ocean!”

“Junjun!”

“Hee!”

“Heehee!”

“Heeheehee!”

“Heeheeheehee!”

“Heeheeheeh—”

“This is a serious matter, goddammit,” Donghun interrupts. “Jun! Junhee!”

Somewhere in the woods, someone screams at the top of their lungs.

Byeongkwan looks in the direction of the noise’s source. “Do you think that’s—”

“Ah! Ahhhh! _AHHHHH! MOOOOM!”_

“Yeah, that’s Jun,” Sehyoon says.

Junhee’s blubbering is soon accompanied by intense splashing.

“What the hell has he gotten himself into?” Sehyoon sighs.

The four of them rush into the woods, guided by the sound of Junhee’s hysterical screaming.

Donghun shakes his head as they get closer and Junhee gets louder. “Let’s hope we don’t have to use that first aid kit.”

When they finally find Junhee, he’s sitting by a brook with a bandage tied around his calf, his pants rolled up to his knees and his drenched socks and sneakers beside him. Upon catching sight of the others, he immediately springs up and points an accusatory finger at them. _“You!_ You left me in the middle of the woods! By myself!”

“What happened?” Sehyoon asks.

“I saw this awful snake slithering next to me. I’m pretty sure it was venomous—it was black and it had these bright yellow stripes. So of course I had to run away, and I ran through the water when I was trying to get away from it. I had to put on a bandage because my leg got scratched by a bush with a bunch of thorns. The snake’s gone now, thankfully.”

Donghun slings Junhee’s backpack over his shoulder. “Were the stripes vertical?”

“Yes, why?”

“That was a garter snake.”

“How dangerous are they?”

Donghun looks at him with an expression that can only be described as absolutely _done._ “They’re known for being pretty much harmless, actually.”

Yuchan laughs at Junhee. “You did all that over a harmless garter snake?”

“That thing looked like it wanted to kill me! What else was I supposed to do?”

Donghun rubs his temple and takes the map sticking out of Junhee’s pocket. “Let’s get our backpacks and head back to the clearing.”

“So, what did you guys do without me?” Junhee asks, picking up his socks and shoes.

“Yoon tried to adopt a wolf,” Byeongkwan says.

Junhee’s jaw goes slack and his sneakers fall into the brook with a quiet splash. “He tried to adopt a _what_.”

Sehyoon smiles. “I’ll tell you about her on the way back.”

* * *

Junhee coughs and waves the smoke out of his face. “What kind of wood is this? Whatever it is, it’s”—he has a brief hacking fit—“it’s _efficient_ , to say the least.”

“Definitely more efficient than yours,” Donghun says, scooting over on his log so Junhee can avoid the smoke.

Sehyoon drops a pile of sticks onto the campfire and its embers roar to life. He moves to sit on an unoccupied log but ends up sitting next to Byeongkwan when he tugs on his sleeve.

Yuchan stuffs a bunch of marshmallows into his mouth and mumbles something unintelligible.

Junhee blinks. “What?”

Yuchan vores his marshmallows and holds the bag towards Junhee. “Do you want any?”

“Sure, don’t mind if I— _what was that for?!”_ Junhee asks after Donghun slaps the marshmallow out of his hand and into the fire.

“Don’t you dare get one of those things near me,” Donghun mutters darkly.

Byeongkwan takes one and slides it onto the end of his stick. “What do you have against marshmallows?”

“Well, it was the summer before freshman year, and—”

Donghun holds a finger up to Junhee’s lips and glares at him. “You swore your silence, remember?”

“Come on,” Junhee says, munching on his marshmallow-less s’mores. “I don’t see why we can’t tell them.”

_“You swore your silence.”_

Sehyoon removes his sketchbook from his backpack and takes Donghun’s camera out of its bag. He goes through his photos, trying to decide upon one to use as a reference, and eventually settles on a picture of a finch. Before he puts his pencil to paper, though, he gets an idea. There’s a good chance Donghun never deleted a certain photograph. He quickly goes through years of photos until he finds the one he’s looking for and shows the camera to Byeongkwan.

Byeongkwan laughs, covering his mouth as he does so. “That’s so cute. Were you the one who took this?”

“Yeah, it’s from our last camping trip.”

“What are you guys looking at?” Yuchan gets up to look at the camera. “Huh, is that why you don't like marshmallows? Wait. Wait!” he suddenly gasps. “Is that a ponytail I see? Why didn’t you tell me you had long hair, Hun?”

“Don’t remind me,” Donghun groans. “Why’d you have to show them that picture?”

“It doesn’t look too bad. Why’d you cut it?” Byeongkwan asks. 

“Actually, he—”

Donghun swats Junhee’s shoulder. “Silence!”

“Junhee burnt it off,” Sehyoon simply answers, stealing one of Junhee’s s’mores.

Donghun looks as if he wants to use him as fuel for the campfire.

Sehyoon shrugs. “Hey, I’m not the one who promised to never talk about it again. So, the last time we went camping together, it was the week before ninth grade. Donghun fell asleep, so Jun decided to put marshmallows on his sweatshirt, but they weren’t sticking, so he roasted them. One of them was still burning, and Jun didn’t notice, so Donghun’s hair caught on fire. He had to cut off the singed parts the day afterwards.”

“Do you know how hard it was to keep that a secret from you guys?” Donghun asks. “I just entered high school and instead of asking me about my name or my hobbies or how my summer went, people asked me if it was true that I got my hair burnt off with a marshmallow. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about it from anyone else.”

“I thought they were joking,” Yuchan says.

Byeongkwan nods. “So did I. I can’t believe you tried to murder your boyfriend, Jun. There—”

Somewhere in the woods, a twig snaps. Silence falls over the group.

Yuchan flinches and his eyes widen. “Um, what was that?”

“Probably a raccoon or something,” Sehyoon says, tilting his sketchbook towards the campfire and beginning his sketch.

“Or”—Donghun puts his flashlight under his face and turns it on—“it could be Hyunsuk Yang.”

Yuchan gulps. “Who’s… Who’s Hyunsuk Yang?”

“You don’t know the tale of Hyunsuk Yang?” Donghun chuckles. “You’ve never heard of him? You don’t know what he did in these very woods?”

“What, did he also burn off someone’s hair with a marshmallow?” Byeongkwan retorts, trying to act indifferent but noticeably clinging to Sehyoon’s arm.

Donghun ignores his comment. “Thirty years ago, Hyunsuk Yang, also known as YG, lived in a cabin here. One day, he kidnapped four young girls and kept them locked up in an old shed for a whole year. At first, he treated them as nicely as possible, but over time, he became worse and worse. He fed them stale bread, raw rabbit meat, and water from the river, and then he stopped feeding them entirely. They starved to death, and he chopped up their bodies into little pieces and sent them to their families along with pebbles that all had the intitials ‘YG’ engraved into them.”

“He… He chopped… He chopped up their bodies?” Junhee timidly echoes, nibbling on a graham cracker.

“That’s not all,” Donghun continues. “There was a group of seven boys who used to hang out in these woods all the time. Hyunsuk Yang lured one of them away from the others, killed him, and used his blood to water his garden. The neighbors of the boy’s family sent them food while they were mourning, and so he sent them the vegetables he grew using their own son’s blood.”

Byeongkwan shivers. “What did he do with his body?”

“He made it into meatloaf and sent half of it along with the vegetables. He ate the other half himself.”

“Did the police catch him? Please tell me the police caught him,” Byeongkwan says.

“They caught him. But he was only in prison for a week before he escaped. They say he’s still roaming the woods, looking for his next victim.” Donghun laughs evilly while his flashlight flickers on and off and Yuchan shrieks.

“Alright, that’s it, we’re going to bed,” Junhee says, visibly shaken.

They douse the campfire, put away the ingredients for s’mores, and retreat into their tents—Sehyoon and Donghun in one, and Junhee, Byeongkwan and Yuchan in the other.

“Oh, and one more thing. Apparently, YG’s cabin used to be right where our tents are,” Donghun adds and zips up the cover.

_“What?!”_

“Well, I guess I won’t be sleeping tonight _._ ”

“Donghun? You’re joking, right? _Donghun?”_

“What’d you have to say that for?” Sehyoon sighs, holding his flashlight over his sketchbook.

“I don’t even know if that’s true, to be honest.” Donghun puts on his retainer and snuggles into his sleeping bag. “Good night. Try not to stay up too late.”

“Good night.”

Fifteen minutes later, Donghun suddenly sits up. “I have an idea.”

“What are you—”

“Shhh.” Donghun silently creeps out of the tent.

“Uh, where—” Sehyoon’s words are cut off by muffled screaming and sobbing.

“It’s YG, it’s YG!” Junhee shrieks. “I don’t want to be chopped up! _I don’t want to be fed to my family!”_

“Take Chan first! He’s a beanpole, he should be the easiest to dismember!” Byeongkwan yells. 

Sehyoon unzips the entrance flap and shines his flashlight on the other tent. Their silhouettes are huddled together, and on the outside, Donghun is vigorously shaking the poles and kicking the cover.

Yuchan backs so far into the tent that the cover’s seams begin to tear. “No, no, take Byeongkwan! He has a lot more protein than me!”

“I’m too young to die! There’s so much dick I haven’t had yet!”

Donghun pokes his head into their tent and laughs. “Are you guys trying to wake up every creature in the woods?”

Yuchan pulls his pillow over his head. “Don’t kill me don’t kill me don’t kill me—wait, Donghun?”

“You guys are pretty entertaining.”

“I was just playing along,” Junhee says, trying to catch his breath. “I knew there wasn’t an axe murderer outside.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Get back inside your tent, and don’t come out until morning.” Junhee lies down on top of his sleeping bag and shoos him away. “This goes for all of you. I don’t want anyone to get murdered or eaten.”

“I certainly wouldn’t mind getting eaten,” Byeongkwan says.

Sehyoon blushes as his silhouette turns in his direction.

Junhee shakes his head. “Go to bed.”

“I’m up for that. Does anyone want to volunteer?”

_“Go to sleep.”_

“Do we have to keep the sleeping arrangements like this?” Byeongkwan whines as Donghun crawls back into his and Sehyoon’s tent. “Sorry, Chan, but you snore.”

_“Hey!”_

“I don’t care who sleeps where, as long as you and Sehyoon don’t end up alone together. I actually want to get some shut-eye tonight,” Junhee says. “I can see you’re still out there, Sehyoon. Get back inside, please. For the last time, _good night._ ”

Sehyoon switches his flashlight to a dimmer setting and zips up the cover to his tent. He props himself up on his elbows, turns Donghun’s camera on, and resumes sketching. Donghun soon falls asleep, muttering something about not using up his camera’s batteries before passing out. Ten minutes of sketching turn into twenty, which turn into thirty, which turn into sixty, and Sehyoon realizes his insomnia has crept up on him once again.

He rubs his eyes as he starts a new page. If he’s not going to sleep, then he might as well do something somewhat productive. He’s halfway through rendering the tail of a woodpecker when he hears someone rustling around in the other tent. He crawls to the front of the tent, doing his best to avoid bumping into Donghun, and slowly unzips the cover.

Byeongkwan steps out of the other tent and glances at the path to the outhouses. However, instead of starting along the path, he begins heading towards the woods. Sehyoon shuts off his flashlight, slips on his sneakers, and goes after him. Byeongkwan's own flashlight seems to still be in his tent; the moon’s silvery glow is sufficient lighting to guide him. In fact, he isn’t carrying anything with him at all, and as he ambles through the clearing, Sehyoon can’t help but think he looks rather… tiny. Gone is the larger-than-life cheer captain who can flirt with someone at the drop of a hat, and in his place is a small, unassuming boy, his hands stuffed in the pocket of his ratty sweatshirt and the bottoms of his baggy pajama pants bunched around his grass-stained sneakers.

He seems to be unaware of Sehyoon’s presence until a twig snaps underneath one of his rubber soles at the edge of the woods. Sehyoon holds his breath as he turns around, walks towards him, and holds out his hand. He hesitates as he reaches out to take it, as if he’s afraid it’ll burn him. Byeongkwan’s gaze flickers to the space between their hands before he looks up at him expectantly, waiting for his unspoken question to be answered. Sehyoon closes his eyes, exhales, and closes the space.

As soon as their palms touch, Byeongkwan leads him into the woods, craning his neck as he searches for something amongst the trees. Eventually, they pass the tree marked by a star, and Byeongkwan pauses to run his fingers along the divots in the trunk. His hand stops and falls to his side when he sets his eyes on what he’s been looking for—an abandoned treehouse nestled amongst the branches.

Byeongkwan ascends the ladder and climbs the tree with surprising agility. He sits on top of the treehouse’s roof, his legs dangling off the edge as he peers down at Sehyoon and waves. Sehyoon follows suit, albeit much less nimbly, and the wooden four-by-six boards creak as he sits down beside him. For a while, they sit in complete silence, looking up at the night sky, until Byeongkwan decides to speak.

“I can’t sleep,” he says, still looking up at the stars.

“Me neither.” Sehyoon tries to search for a recognizable planet or star or constellation and he finds what he thinks is Saturn. “Are you looking for anything in particular, or…?”

“Hmm? Ah, no, I’ve never been good with astronomy. I just think they’re pretty.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty,” Sehyoon says as he stares at the stars’ reflection in his eyes. “Really pretty. I wanted to live up there when I was younger.”

“Up there? Like, in space?”

“I wanted to live amongst the stars. I read _The Little Prince_ when I was a kid and I decided I wanted an asteroid of my own with my own rose and my own weird neighbors—my own businessman, my own lamplighter, my own king. And when people told me my dream was impossible, I told them I would make it possible. I told them I would become an astronaut, the first astronaut to live on an asteroid. I designed my own spacesuit and rocket, too. I even came up with my own astronaut-name, like a stage name or a pen name.”

“Really? What was it?”

“You have to promise not to laugh.”

“I won’t.”

“Wow.”

“Huh?”

“Wow. That was my astronaut-name. I wanted to be Wow, king of the entire universe. King Wow.”

Byeongkwan stifles a giggle. _“Wow?”_

“You promised not to laugh.”

“I’m not laughing, it’s just—Wow. That’s quite the name.”

“It’s been ten years, and my family still won’t let me forget about it,” Sehyoon sighs.

Byeongkwan rests his head against Sehyoon’s shoulder. “I know that feeling.”

“Do you?”

“When I moved from Korea, no one else in my class could pronounce my name, including my teachers. The only one who got it right on the first try was Chan. So I told everyone to call me Ja—” Byeongkwan takes a deep breath. “I told everyone to call me Jason to make it easier for them. It was easier for me, too, because I hated hearing them butcher my name. Wanna know why I chose Jason?”

“Sure. Why?”

“On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t tell you. It’s… It’s pretty bad.”

“I named myself Wow. Your reason for calling yourself Jason can’t be worse than that.”

“Seonkwan was a big fan of Jason Derulo.”

“You named yourself after _Jason Derulo.”_

“I know, it’s bad. Maybe I shouldn’t have told you. You have to promise not to tell anyone else. You’re the only other person who knows.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not Donghun. So, why’d you change it back?”

“I stopped caring,” Byeongkwan shrugs. “When I was in middle school, everyone made fun of me for whatever they could—my name, my accent, my height, my personality. Some of those things I could change, so I did, but I was stuck dealing with the ones I couldn’t. Towards the end of eighth grade, my grandma called me Byeongbyeong in front of my classmates, and they started making fun of me again over one of the parts of myself I thought I’d fixed. Then I ran out of fucks to give, and when I switched neighborhoods and entered high school, I promised myself I would never let anyone take any part of myself away from me ever again. Of course, that didn’t turn out too well.”

“Yeah, what happened last year?” Sehyoon asks.

“My ex thought my name was ugly. He used to mispronounce it and misspell it on purpose and call me dumb nicknames. The things he called me hurt to hear, and they would hurt even more to repeat. I decided to start going by Jason again to make him stop.”

“I… Wow. He sounds… I’m… I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine, you don’t have anything to be sorry about,” Byeongkwan mutters, his voice distant. “I have terrible luck with relationships. He made me believe awful things about myself, and I still have trouble letting those beliefs go.”

“Is he… Does he have anything to do with what happened last weekend?”

Byeongkwan bites his lip. “Kind of. My mom needed me to buy something, and later on I decided to clean my room, and I… I found some stuff I wrote last school year while we were dating. Rereading it and remembering everything really fucked me up.”

“You told Chan about this, right?” Sehyoon asks, slinging his arm around his shoulder.

Byeongkwan bites his lip harder and ends up drawing blood.

“Kwan, you promised.”

“I had my fingers crossed. It didn’t count,” Byeongkwan says. “And besides, it’s… it’s stupid. I mean, what could I have possibly said to him? ‘Hey, Chan, I know I told you to slap me if I ever brought up my stupid ex-boyfriend again, but I was being stupid and I read my stupid diary and now I’m crying. Please hug me before I have a stupid mental breakdown and do something even more stupid.’”

“It’s not stupid. Your feelings aren’t stupid.” Sehyoon wraps his arms around Byeongkwan’s waist and pulls him closer.

“Um, what are you…?”

“Oh, sorry, I’ll—”

Byeongkwan throws his arms around his shoulders and nuzzles into his neck when Sehyoon starts to let go. “No, don’t, I like… I like this,” he mumbles. “You’re good at giving hugs.”

“Thanks?”

“I just… I hate him. I hate him so much. What kind of person makes someone feel bad about smiling?”

“An asshole. An asshole who doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Your smile is beautiful.”

Byeongkwan’s eyes widen. “What? My smile isn’t b—”

“Yes, it is,” Sehyoon insists. “Your eyes and your nose scrunch up and you show all your gums and your teeth and your cheeks puff up and your eyes sparkle. Look, I’m not the most open or honest person out there. I’ve kept secrets from everyone, even Junhee and Donghun. I’ve lied to them, I’ve lied to you, and I’ve lied to myself. I’ve lied to myself so many times, I’ve lost count. But know that I’m telling the truth when I say this—your smile is beautiful. You have one of the most beautiful smiles I’ve ever seen. And if anyone tries to tell you otherwise, tell them to fuck off, because people like that are ugly. Even if they have the face of a model, on the inside, they’re ugly. And you don’t need to listen to people who are ugly like that.”

Byeongkwan says nothing and puts his chin on his shoulder, quietly sniffling.

“Are you crying?” Sehyoon asks, his eyebrows knitted in concern. He removes Byeongkwan’s arms from around his neck and moves his hands from his waist to his shoulders.

“Maybe. Perhaps. A little bit,” Byeongkwan laughs. “For a guy who barely talks to anyone, you’re quite poetic.”

Sehyoon wipes his tears from his cheek with his thumb. “I spend a lot of time thinking. Believe it or not, my head isn’t completely empty.”

“Yeah, it’s just up in the clouds all the time,” Byeongkwan grins, his smile shining bright in the moonlight. “Do you have any exes you want to complain about?”

“I’ve only ever dated Junhee,” Sehyoon says. “I can’t complain about our relationship or him as a partner, but I can complain about him as a friend.”

“If you did that, we’d be here the whole night. So, what made you two want to date?”

“Both of us wanted to get into a relationship. Not particularly with each other, though. He wanted to hold someone’s hand. I wanted to hold someone’s hand. He wanted to kiss someone. I wanted to kiss someone. So we tried all those things with each other, but it didn’t quite feel right. He’s not that bad of a kisser, surprisingly, and he’s not a bad boyfriend, but we didn’t click. After a week of trying to fall for each other, we broke up. We both had other people we wanted to do those things with, anyways.”

Byeongkwan raises his eyebrows. “You had a crush on someone?”

“Yes.” 

“Wanna talk about them?”

“...No, not really,” Sehyoon says, averting his gaze. “Is there anything else you want to hear me to talk about?”

“Hmm. Can you… Okay, this sounds like an odd request, but can you tell me about one of your memories? If you’re comfortable with that.”

“Sure, let me think of something.” Sehyoon closes his eyes and soon opens them again when he finds a good memory. “Oh, I know. Jun had a dumb nickname, too. Have you ever heard the story of Ocean?”

“Uh, no, I don’t think anyone’s ever told me anything about an ocean.”

“When Junhee was younger, he was a lot closer with his younger cousin, Seonghwa. Seonghwa had this group of friends, and they would all pretend to be pirates together. They made their own pirate costumes and their own pirate weapons and their own pirate call and everything. They used the playground as their hideout, and they had their own positions, too—captain, first mate, cook, navigator. They used to run around the neighborhood and look for treasure and fight each other and yell about sailing the seven seas. Junhee wanted to join in, but he didn’t want to be a pirate. He wanted to be a merman.”

“He _what.”_

“He wanted to be a merman,” Sehyoon repeats. “With a pretty blue tail and fins and webbed fingers and scales. He referred to himself as Ocean. The other guys let him pretend he was a merman, but after a while, he stopped playing with them and pretended on his own. Then he started to actually believe he was a merman.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not. He would drag Donghun and me to the library and read mythology books about mermaids and mermen and do research on the old computers. He even tried to convince his mom to let him sleep in his bathtub. Not while taking baths, though. He thought that if he slept in an empty bathtub every night, his ‘powers’ would be awakened. It was something about being in close proximity to water, I think. His teachers sent him to the guidance counselor when he refused to stop writing ‘Ocean Park’ on his assignments.”

“So you’re Wow, and he’s Ocean. Did Grandpa Dong come up with a name for himself, too?”

“Frustratingly, no. He’s been teasing us about our nicknames for at least seven years, and no matter how many times we call him Grandpa or Dingdong or Dongdong or Honey or Honey Bear, it’s not the same since he didn’t choose those names. It’s always been like that—we’re all dumb, but Donghun’s the least dumb, and so he makes fun of us a lot more than we make fun of him. It’s crazy to think about how we’ve kept that dynamic for over a decade.”

“I can’t imagine being friends with someone for that long,” Byeongkwan murmurs. “Sometimes I forget I’ve only known you three for three years. Well, I’ve known Jun and Dongdong for three years. You… I’ve known you for what, over a month? And we’ve been together as five for less than a week. It feels like we’ve been friends for all our lives, and then I realize we haven’t.

“There are parts of them I never got to see and I’ll never get to see. There are parts of you I never got to be there for. Hell, there are parts of Chan I’ll never truly know about. I’ll never know how Junhee felt when he blocked a goal for the first time, I’ll never know what Donghun sounded like in the first school talent show he participated in, I’ll never know how exactly Chan killed the first tangerine tree he tried to grow. I never got to see you drawing messy elementary school doodles. None of you were there when I dyed my hair bright red on the second day of fourth grade because I wanted the other kids to think I was cool. While you were doing research on mermaids and dreaming about being an astronaut, I was on the other side of the world.

“There are so many memories we’ll never share. There are so many firsts you witnessed each other experiencing, and by the time I stepped into the picture, those firsts were hundredths and thousandths. There’s so much of our lives we never spent together, so many years where we were irrelevant to each other.”

“I have so many memories that I love,” Sehyoon says. “And you’re right; a lot of them don’t involve you. But out of all my memories, I think this one is one of my favorites.”

“What?”

“Sitting here with you on top of a treehouse almost twenty feet off the ground. Looking at the stars. Talking. Telling stories at fuck-my-sleep-schedule o’clock. I can’t think of anywhere else I would rather be.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really,” Sehyoon says, softly smiling at him.

Byeongkwan yawns. “Wouldn’t you rather be in your sleeping bag?”

“Ah, maybe. We should get back before someone wakes up and realizes we’re missing.” Sehyoon scoots off of the roof and onto the nearest branch. He carefully slides off, and as soon as he lands on a lower one, he hugs the trunk.

“You good?” Byeongkwan calls out.

“I’m fine,” Sehyoon replies, crouching down and stepping onto the branch closest to the ladder. _Creak._

“Are you sure, Yoon?”

Sehyoon places his foot on the top rung. _Creak._ “Yes, I’m s— _shit!”_ Sehyoon quickly transfers himself onto the ladder as the branch snaps off. The top rung creaks from the sudden stress—not unlike a high school student during AP exam week—and gives out, joining its wooden brethren on the ground. The other rungs soon do the same as Sehyoon lands on them until the last one breaks and he falls onto his bottom.

Sehyoon groans as he gets up. “I’m alright.”

“Yoon… Yoon, how am I going to get down from here?” Byeongkwan asks, looking down at the rungless ladder.

“Um… I… I don’t know,” Sehyoon mutters, dazed. “Should I get the others?”

“You can’t just leave me here! What if you can’t find me again?” 

“You can’t just jump off the roof, either.”

“Fine. Get everyone else over here, but at least leave a trail. Like Hansel and Gretel.”

Sehyoon looks around. “With what? I don’t think a trail of sticks would be too helpful.”

“Here, catch.” Byeongkwan takes something out of his pocket and drops it into Sehyoon’s hands.

“Is this… an orange?” Sehyoon asks, holding the fruit up to inspect it under the moonlight.

“I stole one of Chan’s tangerines earlier. Peel it, and drop slices until you reach the clearing.”

Sehyoon frowns at the tangerine. “But it’s so tiny, how will—”

“You’ll be able to find me again. Trust me. Now go before I end up staying here the whole night.”

Sehyoon digs his fingernails into the tangerine and reluctantly leaves Byeongkwan alone in the tree. He heads towards the faint glow of the lantern outside of their tents, dropping slices along the way, and leaves the last one at the edge of the woods. 

“Guys? Guys, I need your help!”

Junhee, being the light sleeper that he is, crawls out of his tent almost immediately. “What the—Sehyoon, it’s… it’s nearly midnight,” he mumbles. “Why are you still awake?”

“Byeongkwan is stuck in a tree.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, he’s—” Junhee checks inside his tent and screams when he sees Byeongkwan’s Kirby plushie sitting on his empty sleeping bag. _“What?!”_

“He’s stuck in a tree,” Sehyoon repeats.

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“I’m not. He’s stuck in a tree. On top of our old treehouse, to be specific.”

Donghun leaves his tent with a flashlight in his hand and murder in his eyes. “If you two don’t get your asses back in your tents, I’m gonna follow in YG’s footsteps and charbroil your kneecaps.”

“Why is everyone awake?” Yuchan pokes his head out of his tent, his hair sticking out in every direction. “And where’s Kwan?”

“Stuck in a tree,” Sehyoon says for the fourth time.

Junhee rubs his eyes and stares at him. “ _Why_.”

“I couldn’t sleep, and I saw him heading into the woods, so I followed him,” Sehyoon explains. “And we found the treehouse, so we climbed the ladder and hung out there for a while. Then, while I was trying to get back down, the ladder broke. And Byeongkwan’s still up there.”

 _“Byeongkwan and Sehyoon sittin’ in a tree~”_ Yuchan sings. _“K-I-S-S-I-N—”_

“Jesus Christ, I should’ve stayed home. You guys can go figure out how to rescue him. I’m going back to sleep.” Donghun tries to enter his tent and is promptly pulled back by the hem of his shirt.

“We can’t just leave him up there. We have to get him down,” Junhee says.

“And how exactly are you going to do that? I don’t think there are any fire departments nearby.”

“Chan, are your blankets sturdy? Like, could they support a person falling from the roof of a one-story building if a group of people held them out?” Junhee asks.

Yuchan fetches his fuzzy blankets from his tent. “Probably?”

“He’s gonna die,” Donghun says flatly. “We’re gonna try to catch him, we’re gonna fail to catch him, and he’s gonna die.”

Junhee frowns. “Come on, Hun, have some faith in me. I think it’ll work.”

“My ability to have faith in you completely disappeared the second you set my hair on fire.”

“Please, can we get Kwan out of the tree, already?” Sehyoon sighs. “He’s probably freezing up there.”

Junhee helps Chan drag his blankets through the clearing. “Yeah, let’s go. I don’t remember where the treehouse is, so you lead the way, Sehyoon.”

“I don’t really… I don’t know the way.”

“You left Byeongkwan. In a tree. By himself. _And you don’t know where he is._ ”

“I left a trail of tangerine slices. If we can find it, we can find Kwan.”

Yuchan perks up. “Tangerine slices?” He closes his eyes and sniffs the air. _“Tangerine slices.”_ He drops his blankets, gets on his hands and knees, and crawls until he finds one of them and pops it into his mouth.

“Um, Chan, I don’t think you should be—”

“Do you want to find him or not?” Yuchan asks, stuffing his face with dirt-covered citrus.

Junhee keeps his mouth shut as Yuchan scurries across the ground in search of more slices.

“Byeongkwan?” Sehyoon calls out when Yuchan swallows the last slice. “Byeongkwan, are you still there?”

“Yoon! Yeah, I’m still here. Where else would I be?” Byeongkwan responds, impatiently swinging his legs from the roof of the treehouse. “So, what’s the plan?”

“We’re going to hold out these blankets, and you’re going to move to the branch just above the broken one,” Junhee says. “And then you’re going to—”

 _“No_." Byeongkwan draws in his legs and moves to the center of the roof. “I’m not going to jump from a tree. You guys are my best friends, and I trust every—well, I trust _most_ of you, but I’m not falling. I’m not in the mood to break every bone in my body tonight.”

“I told you it’s a dumb idea,” Donghun mutters to Junhee.

“Kwan, we’re going to catch you,” Sehyoon says.

“But what if—”

“We’re going to catch you.” Sehyoon and the others spread out the blankets and lift them from the ground.

Byeongkwan hesitantly makes his way towards the branch closest to the ladder. “What if you don’t? What if you don’t catch me?”

“I’ve caught you before. I can catch you again. So fall.” Sehyoon looks up at him, gripping the blankets as tightly as he can. “Fall like you’re jumping out of a locker. Fall like you’re crashing into someone on your skateboard. Fall like you’re diving into a pile of leaves. Fall like you’re tripping over a root while you’re being chased through the woods. Just… Just fall for me, alright? I’ll catch you. I promise.”

“Okay,” Byeongkwan says quietly. “Okay, I’ll fall for you.”

And so he falls.

He lands squarely in the middle of the sheets and rolls off.

“Are you okay?” Yuchan asks.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” Byeongkwan says, rubbing his shoulder. “God, I never want to go through that again.”

Donghun lets go of the blankets. “I can’t believe you’re not dead. Okay, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m heading back.”

Byeongkwan raises his arm and looks at Sehyoon. He doesn't need to say anything for him to know what he wants.

Sehyoon pulls him off the ground and crouches down to let him get on his back. “See? I caught you.”

 _“We_ caught you,” Donghun corrects. “I deserve some credit, too.”

“You’re the one who was prepared to leave him in a tree all night,” Junhee says.

“Whatever. I still helped.”

“You were going to abandon me, Hun?” Byeongkwan murmurs. “I’m never trusting you with my life again. Take a page out of Yoon’s book and care about your friends a little more.”

Sehyoon tenses up as his lips brush against his ear. “What was it like, falling out of a tree?” he asks. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

Byeongkwan thinks about his answer for a few seconds. “It wasn’t too bad, actually. I don’t mind falling for you.” He toys with Sehyoon’s hair and softly plants a kiss on his neck. “You’re so easy to fall for,” he whispers, his voice laced with something vaguely disconcerting.

When they finally return to their tents, Sehyoon realizes what it is.

_Fear._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6 chapters and the prologue down, 11-ish chapters to go! yeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
> 
> uhhh btw I might not post the next chapter for a little while,, but I will be posting a oneshot soon so yayyy
> 
> aaand have a [dongdong](https://twitter.com/garbage_OwO/status/1288563381398573056) I guess


	8. Burning Inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was,,,, interesting to write (and by that I mean Sehyoon's mental gymnastics were Painful)
> 
> also I know I’ve been gone for a while,,, sorry about that, my motivation has,, er,, not been doing well
> 
> also also thanks for 3000 hits and 200 kudos??? holy shit???? I still haven’t processed that

Sehyoon pauses at the corner and looks around. “Yuchan? Yuchan, are you there? Please don’t jump me again.” He waits for a few more seconds before he concludes that he’s (probably) not being followed and turns into the next hallway.

A second after he takes a step forward, something skitters behind him.

“Who is it? Show yourself,” he demands. He turns around and sees a group of underclassmen at their lockers. They stare at him strangely, shut their lockers, and enter a nearby classroom as the bell rings. Sehyoon hangs his head sheepishly and continues making his way to the courtyard, where Donghun is waiting with a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels and a few practice questions for their upcoming assessment on literary parallels.

 _Clickclickclick._ There it is again. The quiet skittering. _Clickclick._ However, a quick glance tells him he’s alone. Sehyoon tightens his grip on the straps of his backpack.

_Clickclick._

_Click._

_Clickclickclick._

Sehyoon inspects the hallway, trying to decipher who or what the noise could possibly be coming from. The clock hanging above the door to the AP Statistics classroom seems to be functioning just fine. He peeks inside. Yuchan is sitting in the front row, whispering something to Junhee. So neither of them are following him.

_Clickclick._

There might be something wrong with the water fountain. He walks over to the fountain and notices a yellowish-orangish-light-brownish ball of fuzz lying near the lockers adjacent to it. Someone’s keychain, maybe? But if it were a keychain, it wouldn’t be able to make that noise. He crouches down and puts his face next to it. It looks like a tiny stuffed animal—a guinea pig, or perhaps a hamster. He gently pokes it and nearly has a heart attack when it moves.

 _Clickclickclick._ Its tiny paws make quiet tapping noises as it skitters across the tile floor.

There is a hamster in the hallway.

There is a living, breathing hamster in the hallway.

By itself.

With no one else in sight.

Sehyoon’s seen some pretty damn weird things around the school, including but not limited to:

  * a rather professional-looking binder full of Pokémon© cards, all of which were Eevees and Eeveelutions.
  * a copy of _1984_ in which every letter was traced over with a neon green glitter pen.
  * a singular disassembled AirPod Pro™.
  * an Aperture water bottle filled with hot sauce.
  * Junhee Park.
  * a portable Jeff Goldblum shrine made of empty chocolate milk cartons.



So a hamster shouldn’t be too abnormal. However, with the exception of Junhee, all of those items could have been and were added to the lost and found table. But how would someone go about trying to return a hamster? He can’t just place it on the lost and found table and go. Who does he even give it to? He hasn’t heard anything about anyone losing a hamster. He doesn’t even know someone who owns a hamster in the first place. And besides, it’s against the rules to bring your pets into school. He should know; Junhee was the one who caused that rule’s establishment. If he were to report a missing hamster, he would get someone in trouble.

And so he makes a decision—a questionable decision, but a decision nonetheless.

He’s going to keep the hamster until he finds its owner.

“Here,” Sehyoon says, attempting to coax the hamster into his cupped hands. “Here, um… I don’t know your name. I’ll call you… Hmm.... Hamilton. Hamilton the hamster. Here, Hamilton.” He holds his breath as Hamilton scampers onto his palm and looks up at him, eyes wide and glassy. Sehyoon takes off his backpack and unzips it with one hand. There has to be somewhere he can put Hamilton without suffocating it. He pulls out his pencil case, dumps its contents into the bottom of his backpack, slips Hamilton into the case, and shuts it without zipping it up to allow the hamster to breathe. He puts his backpack back on and enters the courtyard.

“Finally, there you are,” Donghun says, looking up from his table. “What kept you so long?”

“I was… I was distracted.” Sehyoon holds down the cover of his pencil case with his thumbs when Hamilton tries to nudge it open.

Donghun pushes a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels towards him as he sits down. “By what? Don’t tell me you lost your sketchbook again.”

“Nothing important.” Sehyoon discreetly moves the pencil case behind Donghun’s AP Physics textbook and keeps his hand on the cover. “Okay, let’s start reviewing. How do the events of chapter seven relate to the story of Icarus?”

“What are you hiding from me?” Donghun asks.

“What?”

“You moved something away from me.” Donghun pushes his textbook out of the way and raises an eyebrow at Sehyoon’s pencil case. “Uh, why are you holding that shut?”

“Why _wouldn’t_ I hold it shut?” Sehyoon counters.

Donghun narrows his eyes at him. “You’re not doing anything stupid, are you?”

“No, I’m not.”

“I heavily doubt that, but okay,” Donghun says. “Just don’t involve me. Got it?”

“Got it.” Sehyoon takes his copy of the novel out of his backpack and flips to chapter seven with one hand. “Hey, can I ask you a question before we start reviewing?”

“I told you not to involve me in whatever idiotic thing you’re doing now.”

“I’m not doing anything idiotic, and I’m not involving you. I just want to ask you a question,” Sehyoon says. “Do you think a cage could fit inside of my locker?”

“A cage? Like, a dog cage?”

“No, like a, um, like”—Sehyoon pushes his pencil case back towards Donghun’s textbook to keep Hamilton from scooting itself off the table—“like… um, like a cage for a… a small rodent. A cage like that.”

“Um.” 

“Don’t worry, I’m not keeping a rodent inside of my locker,” Sehyoon says. “The thing I want to put in my locker is around the same size as a cage for a ham—um, a cage for a small rodent. I have to take it home today, but from tomorrow onwards, it’ll stay in my locker. I’ll have to take it home on weekends, too, I suppose.”

“Okay?” Donghun’s face contorts with suspicion. “Yeah, sure, I think you can fit something like that in your locker if you clear off the shelf.” He takes a plastic bag full of baby carrots out of his lunch box and starts smothering them with ranch dressing.

“Can I have those?” Sehyoon asks.

“You want to eat vegetables? On _purpose?”_

“Yes. Yes I do,” Sehyoon says, taking a few carrots from the bag and carefully dropping them into his pencil case.

“Don’t you want any ranch? All vegetables taste like ballpoint pens when you eat them raw.”

“I’m good. I’m keeping them in here for later.”

“You’re putting them in your pencil case?”

“Must you question every single thing I do?” Sehyoon huffs.

“I wouldn’t, if you weren’t doing anything questionable. I want to make sure you’re not doing anything that would get you in trouble. Or me in trouble, for being an accomplice.”

“No one’s gonna get in trouble. I’m doing this to stop someone from getting in trouble, actually.”

“Really? Who?” Donghun asks.

“I have no clue whatsoever.”

“You don’t—You know what? I’ll stop asking,” Donghun sighs and pops a ranch-coated carrot into his mouth. “Let’s get these questions over with; I can’t fail this assessment.”

Sehyoon manages to get through the rest of the day without losing Hamilton, and as soon as the final bell rings, he tries to bolt to his car. Just as he reaches the main entrance, he runs into an underclassman girl—his sister.

“Hey, Sehyoon, what’s the—”

“I know it’s a little last-minute, but can you take the bus home today?” Sehyoon asks, holding his pencil case closer to his chest as students push past him on their way to the parking lot. “I need to be somewhere for a while.”

“Another date with Byeongkwan?” Eunsuh guesses.

“No, I—Watch it!” Sehyoon frowns when a junior nearly makes him drop his pencil case. “Actually… Actually, yeah, that’s exactly what I’m doing today. That’s a perfect excu—I mean, explanation. I need to go. Bye.”

Before she can ask any more questions, he leaves her at the entrance, throws his backpack into his trunk, and places his pencil case in the side compartment of the driver’s seat. He looks up the address of his desired location, plugs it into his GPS, and a few missed turns and a detour later, he arrives at AdPETures In Wonderland—the most well-rated and terribly-named pet supplies shop in the area.

“I’m gonna need you to stay here, okay? I won’t be gone for too long, I promise,” he says, kneeling on the pavement to peer into the side compartment.

An old woman carrying a sack of kitty litter clears her throat. “Excuse me. I need to get to my car.” She squints at the boy on the ground, who, as far as she’s aware, is talking to his car door.

“Oh. Sorry.” Sehyoon gets up, brushes himself off, shuts the door, and heads inside AdPETures In Wonderland, embarrassed to have been caught talking to a hamster.

“Hello, and welcome to AdPETures In Wonderland,” the cashier smiles, outwardly cringing as she says the name. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“Uh. I need a cage. A hamster cage. And hamster food,” Sehyoon says.

“Sure, follow me. How long have you had a hamster for?”

“It’s not my hamster. I’m… I’m keeping it for a friend of mine. They’re on vacation, and I don’t know when they’re coming back.”

The cashier gives him a concerned look. “And they didn’t bother to give you a cage? Or any food, at least?”

“The, uh… The cage broke, and I ran out of food this morning,” Sehyoon answers, trying to appear the least bit earnest.

“Oh, well that sucks. Do you want a pamphlet about hamster care?”

“I think I should be good.”

“Alright then. Everything you need should be in this aisle. Knock yourself out.”

As Sehyoon tries to decide which brand of hamster food he should buy, another customer enters the shop and the cashier rushes to the front to greet them.

“Hello, and welcome to AdPETures In Wonderland. Is there anything I can help you with?”

Sehyoon’s blood runs cold as the customer answers.

“Nah, I should be fine. I’m here for some dog food. Lion and Boo-Boo are running out.”

Sehyoon ducks behind a box full of dog toys and slowly rears his head to look at Junhee between the bags of dog kibble. He feels as if his heart is going to beat out of his chest as Junhee heads into the aisle next to his and crouches down to examine the bags. With every second of silence, Sehyoon becomes more and more convinced his shallow breathing will give him away, if it hasn’t already. Finally, Junhee takes one of the bags off the shelf and puts it into his basket. But instead of heading towards the cashier, he goes towards the dog treats a few feet away from Sehyoon.

Of fucking course. Leave it to Junhee Park to be a good father figure, whether he’s caring for his friends or his dogs.

Sehyoon scoots away as quietly as possible as he draws near and ends up sitting on something soft and rubbery. A long, drawn-out squeak, reminiscent of that of a dying chicken—which he supposes is the point—resonates from underneath his plush bottom.

 _Shit,_ he mouths.

Thankfully, Junhee doesn’t go looking for the person who squeezed the toy. He starts humming as he chooses two large bacon-flavored biscuits—the melody is vaguely recognizable; it sounds like one of the harmonizing parts of some long-closed Broadway musical’s opening number he’s drilled into his head recently—and Sehyoon lets out a sigh of relief as his platform sneakers (insoles can only do so much to solve his vertical issues) plod across the shop’s scuffed wooden floorboards.

He’s okay. He’s fine. Junhee didn’t see him.

Someone suddenly grabs the bag of dog treats right next to his face and drops it into their basket. Sehyoon doesn’t need to turn his head to see who it is, but he does so anyway.

“...Hi?”

As soon as Junhee meets eyes with him, he lets out a strangled shriek, falls onto his relatively-flat pancake of an ass, and scrambles backwards until his back hits the opposite shelf. A mouse-shaped cat toy lands on his head and bounces onto the floor with a pathetic squeak.

The cashier rushes over to Junhee, her eyebrows knitted with worry. “Are you okay, sir?”

“Yes? Maybe? I think so,” Junhee says, getting up to put the toy back on the shelf. “I just… I didn’t expect to see my friend here.” He gives Sehyoon a pointed stare.

“Well, as long as you don’t knock everything off the shelves.” She rearranges a few sacks of cat food and watches Junhee from the corner of her eye as she heads back to the register.

“So, what exactly are you doing here?” Junhee asks, pushing aside a few eye-level bags of dog treats to look at him properly. “Didn't you say that Carrot is allergic to all of the cat food brands at AdPETures?”

“I’m… I didn’t…” Sehyoon’s gaze falls to the bag of hamster food in his hand. “Art project,” he blurts out.

“What?”

“I’m here for an art project.”

Junhee raises an eyebrow. “An art project? What, are you going to use flea combs as paintbrushes?”

“Um, no,” Sehyoon says, holding up his hamster food. “You know those macaroni art things we used to make back in elementary school? I’m doing that, but with this. Like… a pet food collage. Made with dog food, cat food, fish food, hamster food… you know. Pet food.”

“Oh?” Junhee drags the word out, and it hangs in the air for a while like a rusty chandelier that nobody wants to buy from an antique store.

“It’s a pet food collage,” Sehyoon needlessly repeats, as if saying the phrase again will make his confusion disappear.

Despite having everything he needs in his basket, Junhee stays where he is and scrutinizes the bag, trying to work out what the hell a pet food collage could possibly be. “Is this for school, or…?”

“No?”

“So you—What, were you lying on your bed and suddenly you thought about making a… a pet food collage?”

“Yes.”

“I… I’m just gonna say that I'll probably reconsider which pet shop I go to.” Junhee shakes his head. “Alright, I’ll leave you to do”—he vaguely gestures to the bag—“whatever making pet food collages entails. Have fun, I guess?”

“I will.” Sehyoon watches him as he bends down to pick up his basket.

Junhee looks at him one last time before he heads towards the cashier. “Are you sure this isn’t for… you know, an actual pet? Like, a dog? Or a cat? Or a hamster?”

“What’s a hamster?”

Junhee blinks.

Sehyoon blinks back.

Junhee squints at the bag, squints at him, shakes his head, and turns on his elevated heel. “I am definitely reconsidering,” he mutters as he walks away. “Definitely, _certainly_ reconsidering.”

* * *

Sehyoon sticks as much of his hand as possible into the cage and pets Hamilton with his pinky. “Sorry, but I have to go to class now. Promise me you’ll be good, okay?” He repositions his books so that the cage can only be seen if someone is directly in front of his locker.

“Hey, Yoon, how’s—”

Sehyoon slams his locker shut and glues his back to the wall.

“Am I interrupting something?” Byeongkwan kneels down and casually lifts one of Sehyoon’s legs to open his locker and swap his books for his next class.

“You just startled me a bit, that’s all,” Sehyoon says, doing his best to ignore his featherlight but searing grip on his thigh and the proximity of his head to his crotch. 

Byeongkwan gives his thigh a tight squeeze before closing his locker and letting go. “Hmm, did I?” Byeongkwan asks, his mouth still much too close (or not close enough, to be honest) to Sehyoon’s dick and his knees still on the floor.

“Yes. Yes you did.” Sehyoon peels himself from the wall and feels his spit lodge in his throat as Byeongkwan licks his lips, looking him in the eyes all the while, and gets up. “Um… Why didn’t you ask me to move aside?”

Byeongkwan shrugs. “You seemed comfortable pressed up against the lockers.”

The spit in Sehyoon’s throat becomes unstuck and he chokes on it.

Byeongkwan ignores his reaction (or at least, he pretends to) and not-so-discreetly links arms with him as they make their way to their calculus classroom. “You’ve been so tense, lately. More tense than usual. Is there anything on your mind?”

_You. Your mixed signals. This calculus unit, which I don’t understand at all. Yuchan’s numerous attempts to break into my locker after Donghun told him I’m hiding something in there. The fact that I’ve been harboring a hamster at school for four days and nobody’s said anything._

“No, not really.”

“Are you sure? You’re always staring at the speakers during math. Is there an announcement you’re waiting for?”

“I guess I end up staring off into space a lot,” Sehyoon says, unlinking their arms and opening the door for him.

Byeongkwan frowns. “Alright. But if something’s up, you can talk to me. I may not be the best at dealing with… _stuff,_ but I can listen. I’ll always listen.”

“Oh… Okay.”

Something happens to Sehyoon’s heart. It doesn’t leap for joy, but it doesn’t break. It doesn’t stop, but it doesn’t beat faster. It doesn’t make him feel cold, but it doesn’t make him feel warm, either. He doesn’t know exactly what happens to it, but he knows one thing for sure—it belongs to Byeongkwan, completely and unequivocally.

There’s a notion that pervades his thoughts, and no matter how hard he tries to drop-kick it out of his head, he can’t. It’s stupid, but regardless of how many times Donghun and Junhee have told him to think differently, it stays there, taunting him, teasing him, sneering at him. God, his conscience is such a smug bastard. And now, while he’s supposed to be attempting to make heads or tails of this dumb lesson, it’s crawling from the depths of his mind and situating itself on top of the rest of his thoughts, a tyrant king seated upon a throne of half-baked ideas and wild daydreams.

_You don’t deserve him._

In a way, this notion is entirely correct. He doesn’t know what he’s ever done to have someone like Byeongkwan in his life. He doesn’t know what he’s ever done to somehow feel both more comfortable and uncomfortable than he’s ever felt before whenever he’s in his presence. He’s the most blessed curse in his life, or maybe the most cursed blessing. 

He’s _everything,_ really—and Sehyoon doesn’t deserve everything. Something, maybe, but not everything. Just as he’s about to consider what exactly that something is, the loudspeakers crackle to life and the teacher attempts to shush the class.

“Testing, testing,” someone mutters. They tap the microphone a few times and clear their throat. “Hello, this is Junhee Park, your student council vice president. I’m here to make an announcement.” 

_Shit._ Something in Sehyoon’s gut tells him it won’t concern any upcoming basketball games or bake sales.

“I take AP Physics, and we have a class pet—a hamster named Butter. Every weekend, one of us volunteers to take her home, and we return her on Monday. Unfortunately, this past Monday, she went missing, and as of today, no one has reported seeing a hamster on the loose. We originally thought that the student who took her home didn’t lock her cage properly, but—”

Sehyoon recognizes the frustrated sigh that comes afterwards in a heartbeat—Donghun. “I told you, I didn’t—”

“— _but_ the student vehemently denies this, so we are led to believe that someone took her on purpose. I dearly hope this isn’t the case, but the possibility is there. If this is a prank, and one of you does have our beloved hamster, please return her immediately. We have decided there will be no consequences as long as we get her back safely. So, can we please have our class pet back? Can we have Butter?”

There’s a quiet beep as Junhee turns off the microphone.

Sehyoon must be reacting unusually (or rather, more unusually than usual) because Byeongkwan tilts his head and presses his lips together. 

“Are you sure there’s nothing on your mind?”

Suddenly, he’s brought back to that nervous reconciliation at Brew Interactive, Byeongkwan’s hands on his shoulders while he looks at him with that beautiful, concerned, almost painfully loving expression. It would be so alleviating to let the phrase slip off his tongue.

_Byeongkwan, I don’t deserve you._

But he knows what will happen. He knows that Byeongkwan will trail after him as soon as class ends and tell him a million reasons why he’s wrong and he does deserve him, he deserves the whole world, and he should never let himself think otherwise. And he knows his heart can’t take it. Friendship is a beautiful thing, but the throes of unrequited love can scar it quite easily.

_Byeongkwan, I don’t deserve you._

He almost says it. He’s so close to saying it, but he doesn’t.

“There is something on my mind, actually. I’ll tell you about it when we get the chance.”

Byeongkwan’s expression shifts; he looks content—triumphant, almost. He’s torn down his walls, and Sehyoon’s mind and heart are on display for him to prod, to poke, to play with. There’s no doubt he’ll do exactly that; it’s only a matter if Sehyoon wants to build those walls back up again—if he even _can_ build those walls back up again. What was once a steel fortress is now a house built on sand, wrecked over and over again by the hurricane of compassion that is Byeongkwan Kim.

As expected, Byeongkwan adheres himself to his side when the bell rings. He doesn’t say anything; he just holds his hand and patiently waits for him to speak up.

“I’ll talk about it later,” Sehyoon says, letting go of him so they can go to their respective classes.

Byeongkwan tries again during lunch, and Sehyoon shakes his head and gestures to the others.

“Later.”

Byeongkwan leans in until his warm breath tickles his ear. “We can excuse ourselves, if you want.”

Sehyoon nearly jumps away from him. “But what are they going to think?” he asks, his voice low. “We can’t go off on our own, they’ll think—”

“Care to share with the rest of us?” Donghun interrupts.

“We were just discussing how we want to talk about something,” Byeongkwan says, intertwining his fingers with Sehyoon’s for everyone to see. _“Alone.”_

“No, we don’t,” Sehyoon counters. He brings their hands under the table. 

Byeongkwan pouts and steals a few fries off his tray.

“I thought you hated the school’s fries, Kwan.” Yuchan attempts to finagle a Bagel Bite™ from Junhee and is met with a nose-scrunch as the latter gives in and pushes his Tupperware® towards him.

Byeongkwan stuffs more of Sehyoon’s fries into his mouth. “I do.”

That’s another thing about Byeongkwan Kim that he—well, he doesn’t love or hate it. It’s just another thing about Byeongkwan Kim—his strange indifference regarding the world’s perception of his relationship with Sehyoon. But it’s not really indifference; it doesn’t feel like indifference. It feels like Byeongkwan _wants_ everyone to think they’re together, to think they’re meeting up under the bleachers and in bathroom stalls to do unspeakable things. All the affection, all the hand-holding, all the invitations to hang out—he knows all of these actions are sincere, but he can’t help but feel like there’s something else to them at times.

Sehyoon makes sure the classroom is empty before turning the knob and going inside. He walks over to a row of desks, drapes himself on top of them, and lets out a sigh as his shirt and hoodie ride up a bit and his back touches the cold surface.

Maybe he’s overthinking everything; it wouldn’t be the first time he’s done so. Byeongkwan’s just being friendly, right? Friends are affectionate. Friends hold hands. Friends hang out. He’s done these things with Junhee and Donghun a hundred times before. Then again, Junhee and Donghun bother to correct everyone who thinks Sehyoon is dating either or both of them. Byeongkwan, however… Byeongkwan spins his words ever so carefully until they create an intricate web full of flies in the forms of assumptions and misconceptions.

As the captain of the cheerleading team, Byeongkwan is a captivating performer. Every backflip, every split jump, every somersault—it’s all fascinating. The only thing more fascinating than watching him be in his element on the sidelines is watching him dance around questions about his relationship status. The vagueness of his answers draws Sehyoon in, makes him entertain fantasies he shouldn’t, makes him believe Byeongkwan wants the same things he wants. 

What _does_ he want, exactly? Sure, he wants to meet up under the bleachers and in bathroom stalls and do unspeakable things, but he also wants more. He wants the intimacy he found on top of his old treehouse in the woods, in his favorite coffee shop, and on his neighbor’s lawn. He wants his dick _and_ his heartstrings to be tugged at, but above all else, he wants his stupid desires to be reciprocated.

As he blankly stares at the grey ceiling, the gears click.

It _is_ a performance. Sehyoon is just like everyone else, adding flies to Byeongkwan’s web. However genuine he is, he’s a performer, and Sehyoon is another member of his audience. Of course Sehyoon is affected by him. Who wouldn’t be?

Unfortunately, awareness of the cause of his turmoil doesn’t make it go away. And so he lies on the desks, entertaining the fantasy that Byeongkwan is entertaining the very same fantasies he finds himself entertaining more and more often.

_Click. Creak._

“Yoon?”

He immediately sits up and looks at the doorway.

“Relax, it’s just me,” Byeongkwan laughs, hopping up to join him on the desks. “We can finally talk now.”

“Don’t tell me you’re skipping class for this.”

Byeongkwan shrugs. “I mean, I’m technically not. We had a short quiz and the substitute let us go as soon as we finished. If I had to skip, though, I definitely would.” He yawns and leans back until his body is sprawled across the desks and his head is in Sehyoon’s lap. “So, what’s been bugging you?”

Sehyoon looks down and it takes every fibre of his being to prevent himself from running his hands through his hair. Or squishing his cheeks. Or brushing his thumb over his lips. Or just touching him, really. “Well…”

“We're friends. You can tell me anything.” Byeongkwan reaches up and pulls his head closer to his.

Sehyoon bites his lip. “You know how Jun was talking about Butter? The hamster that went missing on Monday?”

“Yeah, what about her?”

“I know where she is.”

Byeongkwan’s eyes widen. “You do?”

“She’s in my locker.”

“She’s…” It takes a few seconds for his words to register, and when they do, Byeongkwan makes a small shrieking noise. _“You stole a hamster?!”_

“Shhh, not so loud! Look, I didn’t _steal_ her. I saw her on the floor, and since pets aren’t allowed in school, I didn’t want to get anyone in trouble, so I didn’t notify a teacher. I didn’t know she’s the AP Physics class pet.”

Byeongkwan sighs and pulls his head even closer. “What am I ever going to do with you?”

“I don’t know. What _are_ you going to do with me?”

Byeongkwan smiles. “You’re a mess.”

“Am I, now?”

“The messiest of messes. But you’re my m—” Byeongkwan freezes mid-sentence and lets his hands fall from his face to his chest. “You can’t keep her in there forever, you know.”

“I’m not planning to, trust me. Hamsters are a lot more high maintenance than I thought they were,” Sehyoon says, frowning at the loss of contact. “Is there a way I can return her in secret?”

“Maybe. I’ll think about it.” Byeongkwan draws one of his legs in and softly taps the sole of his cherry-printed Converse® sneaker on the desks. “Is that the only thing you’ve been thinking about, Yoon?”

“I think so.”

Byeongkwan’s bottom lip juts out. “Haven’t you been thinking about me?” he asks, winking.

“I… Yeah, I’m—I’ve been—I—”

“I’m kidding. You know I’m kidding, right?”

“I know, you told me. I haven’t… I haven’t forgotten.”

“It doesn’t seem like it,” Byeongkwan mutters under his breath. “I'll stop, if you want. I'll stop making these kinds of jokes. I’ll—”

“Don't,” Sehyoon says. “You don't have to stop anything.”

“But—”

“Don’t. I don’t mind them.”

But he does. Sehyoon thinks about them late at night, early in the morning, during class, after school, when he’s with him, when he’s alone. He thinks about what’s real and what isn’t, what Byeongkwan means and what he doesn’t. All the things Sehyoon doesn’t understand, all the things he can’t wrap his head around, all the easily misinterpretable smiles, all the confusing displays of affection. Understanding Donghun, Junhee, and Yuchan is effortless, but Byeongkwan is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. And so, to escape the difficult task that is understanding Byeongkwan, he lets himself pretend.

It’s painful, sometimes—pretending like he really does mean everything he says, pretending he’s entirely serious when he says he belongs to Sehyoon or they’re soulmates or he thinks about him when he cheers. And yet he does it.

“It’s fine. I… I don’t mind them.”

_Beep! Beep! Beep! Beep!_

Byeongkwan screws his eyes shut and slaps his hands over his ears. “What the hell is that?”

“It sounds like there’s a fire drill,” Sehyoon says, his voice barely audible over the alarm. “I don’t remember them announcing there would be one this week, but I don’t think they announced the one we had last month, either.”

“Can we stay here? Please?”

“I don’t think we should be—”

“It’s freezing, and I don’t have a jacket. You don’t want me to get frostbite, do you? And they won’t notice, since you don’t have class and my substitute doesn’t have the attendance list.”

“Fine, we can stay.”

They quietly wait as the other students flood the hallways and head outside. A minute after the last few people leave, the aggressive beeping stops.

 _“Finally.”_ Byeongkwan closes his eyes and turns his head to the side. “You stole a hamster,” he mumbles. “I can’t believe you stole a hamster. I’m telling Jun to hide Lion and Boo-Boo before you try to steal them, too.”

“Didn’t you steal my sister’s cat a few weeks ago?”

Byeongkwan waves his hand in the air and Sehyoon has to lean back to keep his face from being smacked. “Pssh, that was then. I’ve changed.”

“Hm.”

“You’re making your robot face again, aren’t you? I know you are. I can sense it.”

“Robot face?”

“Yes, your robot face. Whenever someone says something you don’t agree with, you make your robot face for a few seconds. Your eyebrows get lower and your whole face freezes and you look like you’re trying to reboot your brain. It’s cute.”

“Cute? I’m not—”

“I said what I said, and I’m one hundred percent correct,” he insists. “I’m one hundred percent correct about having changed, too. I’m not planning on stealing any cats in the future.”

“Are you sure? I saw a calico on someone’s porch the other day. I think you would’ve found it worth cat-napping.”

Byeongkwan reaches up and flicks his forehead. “I don’t steal cats just because. Back in middle school, when Chan was my only friend, I kept stray cats in my attic. I hoped that when the owners sent out notices, I could return them, and then we would talk and become friends. I don’t know why I thought that would work. I mean, I kept some of those cats for months before my parents found out and made me take them to a shelter.” 

“Why didn't you call or text anyone back when you found Carrot, then?”

“I don’t know, I guess... As much as I wanted to meet her owner, it’s nice to get away from everything for a while. When you’re alone with a cat, the world seems so much less stressful. I sincerely believe that being alone with a cat is the best way to make yourself feel better. Well, the second-best.”

“What’s the first?”

“Being alone with you.”

“...Oh. Is that…” Sehyoon hesitates. “Is that another one of your jokes?”

“No.” Byeongkwan yawns as the tip of his nose brushes against Sehyoon’s thigh. “Can you keep on doing that? It feels nice.”

“Doing what? I’m not…” Sehyoon looks at him and realizes he’s been subconsciously running his fingers through his hair. “Oh. Um. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. It’s… It’s… Mm…”

“Kwan? Hey, Kwannie?”

Byeongkwan snores in reply.

Sehyoon sighs and continues playing with his hair, and after a while, Byeongkwan starts producing grumbling noises from the back of his throat. The noises don't seem displeased, though; they seem quite the opposite. They’re both foreign and familiar to Sehyoon’s ears. The only times he’s heard sounds like these are when Carrot is—

Oh. He’s purring. Well, not exactly, since human beings can’t purr, but it sounds pretty close to purring.

Sehyoon does the most logical thing one can do when they’re petting the prettiest boy in the whole world while he purrs with his head in their lap—he pinches himself. 

_“Ow.”_

Okay, he’s not dreaming. He really _is_ petting the prettiest boy in the whole world while he purrs with his head in his lap.

He is fucked. He is so utterly fucked. On a scale from Everyone Thinking You Banged In The Locker Room to Getting Your Hair Burnt Off With A Goddamn Marshmallow, he is Completely, Absolutely, Hopelessly In Love With Your Friend Who Doesn't Like You Back levels of thoroughly _fucked._

Before he can figure out a way to possibly unfuck himself, his phone buzzes in his pocket.

**living proof that redheads are demon spawn**

**Today** 12:57 PM

_tell kwan to pick up his phone :(((_

_He can’t right now_

_really?? that’s a first XD_

_where are you guys??_

_we’ve been looking for you_

_Inside_

_We’re not gonna die if we miss one fire drill_

_WHAT_

_JUN’S GONNA KILL YOU_

_IT’S NOT A DRILL?!?!?!?_

_NO_

_RUUUUUUN_

“Kwan. Kwannie. Come on, Byeongkwan, _wake up,”_ Sehyoon frantically mutters, shaking him awake.

“Hmm? Is it time for our next—”

_“It’s not a drill.”_

Byeongkwan rubs his eyes and sits up. “It’s... It’s not…?”

Sehyoon shows him his phone.

“Ah, fuck!” Byeongkwan scrambles off the desks, pulls Sehyoon to his feet, and drags them out of the classroom. “We can’t go out the main entrance, or else everyone will see, and I’m sure neither of us want to deal with the consequences of that.”

“Here, I know an exit.” Sehyoon leads him to the end of the hallway and opens a door.

“Isn’t this a—wait, it’s a stairway?” Byeongkwan asks, descending the stairs. “I thought it was a supply closet.”

“That’s what everyone thinks.” Sehyoon pushes open the door at the bottom and the two of them step outside.

Byeongkwan immediately shivers and rubs his bare arms. “I don’t remember ever seeing someone go in there. Is it supposed to be a secret?”

Sehyoon shakes his head. “It’s not a secret, just forgotten. Jun and I used to hang out there back when we… _you know_ , and now it’s his and Donghun’s little hideaway. They go there to ‘talk’, apparently.”

“I’m sure they have great conversations,” Byeongkwan laughs, instinctively leaning into Sehyoon as they slip into the crowd gathered in the parking lot.

“They have to be here somewhere, it’s not like—Sehyoon? Hey, I found them!” Yuchan breaks off from his AP Statistics class to envelop Sehyoon and Byeongkwan in a group hug. “Good to know you’re not dead.”

Junhee trails after him and has to tilt his head up to look at Sehyoon (it looks he opted out of wearing platform sneakers today). “What were you thinking? You almost gave me a heart attack!”

“We thought it was a drill,” Byeongkwan says, treating Sehyoon like a koala would a eucalyptus tree. “And I didn’t really want to get hypothermia.” He blows on his fingertips and rubs his hands together.

“I’m disappointed in you. Very, _very_ disappointed,” Junhee huffs. “I thought you knew better. What if Chan hadn’t called?”

Byeongkwan rolls his eyes. “Sorry, Dad. I’ll promise to choose death by ice over death by fire next time.”

“Hey! Get back in line!” the AP Statistics teacher shouts at Junhee and Yuchan.

“Just… stay safe, alright?” Junhee takes Yuchan by the arm and heads towards their teacher.

“Don’t worry, we will,” Byeongkwan grins. “We always stay safe, don’t we, Yoon?”

Junhee pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’m going to pretend the thought process behind your answer was wholesome.”

Byeongkwan sticks his hands in Sehyoon’s sweatshirt pocket as he laughs into the crook of his neck. “I was joking about death by ice, but it feels like Mother Nature is taking me seriously.”

“You can have my sweatshirt, if you want.”

“I’m fine, I don’t want—”

Sehyoon quickly takes it off and thrusts it into his arms. “Take it. You need it a lot more than I do.”

Byeongkwan holds the sweatshirt to his chest, his breath condensing into tiny clouds as he stares at Sehyoon.

“Kwannie? Are you okay?” He follows his line of sight. “Is there something on my arms or my chest or—”

Byeongkwan cuts him off by throwing the sweatshirt at his face. “This is the first time I’ve seen you in a T-shirt.”

“I know we weren’t exactly close last spring, but there’s no way you didn’t at least see me, it’s not—”

“No, no, I’m—it’s different this time.” Byeongkwan swallows. “Ah, fuck, it’s—it’s _tight.”_ His cheeks turn even pinker as he looks at the ground.

“Really? I’ll make sure to buy looser ones.”

“Don’t! I mean— _I mean_ —look, I’m not gonna wear your sweatshirt.”

Sehyoon takes his hand and examines it. “Please, Kwan, your fingers are already red.”

“I’m not gonna—”

“Please?”

Byeongkwan reluctantly takes his sweatshirt from him and slips it over his head. “You’re gonna get cold.”

“I don’t get cold easily,” Sehyoon says, trying to keep himself from shivering as the frigid air nips at his skin.

Byeongkwan bites the inside of his cheek. “There are goosebumps on your arms already. Hold on.” He wraps his arms around him and rests his cheek on his shoulder. “There, are you warming up?”

Sehyoon sighs as he starts tracing circles on his back. “I think so.”

Byeongkwan’s breath fans across his face. “You still feel cold.” He slowly removes his hands from his back and reaches up to cup his face. “God, your skin’s like ice. Can you even feel anything, or are you numb?”

 _I feel everything_ , Sehyoon wants to say. _And I’m not cold. I’m not cold at all. You just happen to be searing. And I..._

He inhales sharply.

_I fear that I might be Icarus._

But he decides to keep his mouth shut, and as they hold each other in the parking lot, he wonders which has the greater capacity to set his mind ablaze—the fire in the chemistry lab, or Byeongkwan.

* * *

Thankfully, the only collateral damage of the fire is an easily-replaceable table, and so everything proceeds as normal the next Monday.

Correction: mostly normal. Sehyoon takes note of two unrelated yet equally jarring oddities:

  1. The perpetual saltwater smell that wafts from the chemistry lab has a few new companions—the aggressively unpleasant stench of smoke, the aggressively pleasant scent of Febreze®, and the decidedly neutral but still aggressive aroma of deviled eggs. No one is quite sure of the source of the last one.
  2. Byeongkwan is wearing his sweatshirt.



The second oddity shouldn’t come as much of a surprise—Sehyoon is no stranger to seeing his friends wear his clothes. He’s swapped sweaters and shirts and jackets with Donghun and Junhee so often that each of them have several clothing items that they can’t deduce the original owner of. But those clothing items are different; they’ve fully integrated into their new owners’ wardrobes.

In comparison, Sehyoon’s sweatshirt stands out like a highlighter in a box of oil pastels. First of all, Byeongkwan is swimming in it. Their figures aren’t incredibly disparate, but when Sehyoon’s affinity for oversized sweatshirts is paired with Byeongkwan’s acid wash skinny jeans, the latter looks smaller than what his usual sleeveless shirts and tight jackets would make you think. Second of all, the bright orange and silver paint splotches lining the sleeves clash with every other color in his ensemble. One wouldn’t need a degree in color theory to recognize how much of an eyesore his sweatshirt is. (And yet, despite all its garishness, it’s strangely endearing.) Third of all, it smells like Sehyoon—alcohol-based markers, chocolate, lavender, and anxiety. It’s not a terrible smell, in all honesty, but it’s a distinctly-not-Byeongkwan smell.

Byeongkwan might as well have a piece of paper taped to his back saying _This Is Not My Sweatshirt._

Sehyoon only stops thinking about his sweatshirt when the teacher makes the class split into pairs to go over homework.

A student eyes Byeongkwan’s completed worksheet. “Hey, BK, can we—”

“I already have a partner,” Byeongkwan says, getting up to move his chair to Sehyoon’s desk. “Okay, I already went over the answers with Chan, and”—he glances at his notebook—“it looks like all of your work is correct.” He lowers his voice. “Let’s go over our game plan for today.”

“Game plan?”

“We’re going to return Butter during our lunch period without anyone knowing.” Byeongkwan flips through his notebook until he lands on a page near the middle on which various names, phrases, and times are printed.

However, before Sehyoon can ask any questions, a doodle catches his eye. In the margin, a messy garland of orange roses borders a name—Dongjun. 

Byeongkwan looks at the doodle and frowns. “My grandmother is helping this guy named Dongjun grow flowers. I asked around, but nobody’s heard of him. Do you know anyone with that name?”

Sehyoon searches for the slightest hint of suspicion—a glimmer in his eye, maybe, or a twitch of his finger, or a shift in posture. He loosens up when he finds none. “No, I don’t think so. There was a pair of twins I went to middle school with, though, and one of them was named Dongju. Maybe it’s him?”

“Hmm, maybe,” Byeongkwan says, still squinting at the roses. “But my grandmother isn’t the type to get names wrong.”

“This could be an exception. You never know,” Sehyoon laughs, mentally cursing himself for the tinge of nervousness in his voice. “Anyways, what’s all of this?” He points at the page’s main contents.

Byeongkwan looks around to make sure no one else is listening before beginning his explanation. “Okay, I’ve been asking around, and I have a rough schedule for today. Dr. Gudak, the AP Physics teacher, always heads to the teachers’ lounge as soon as the bell rings at 12:30. She usually spends around five minutes talking to Mr. Kang and then they both leave. So we go in, we take her key ring, we go to the AP Physics classroom, we unlock Butter’s cage with the key with a smiley face sticker, we put her back, and we return her keys.” He taps each part of the plan with his pencil as he goes through it.

“That’s all?”

“Well, there’s another thing. 3RACHA.”

Sehyoon quirks an eyebrow. “Sriracha?”

“No, 3RACHA. There’s this group of juniors who produce their own songs and put them on SoundCloud—that Australian kid and two of his friends. They take Dr. Gudak’s keys fifteen minutes after she leaves and practice their vocals.”

“Practice their vocals…?”

“Donghun says the room has ‘good acoustics,’ whatever that’s supposed to mean. We don’t have to worry about them—I’m sure it’s gonna take less than ten minutes for us to return Butter.”

Sehyoon spends the rest of the morning buzzing with anticipation. Anticipation, anxiety, and the knowledge that Byeongkwan is wearing his (his!) sweatshirt. After what feels like years, the lunch bell rings.

Sehyoon rushes into the hallway, disappears into the crowd, and pushes against the current of students flocking to the cafeteria until he reaches his locker. He quickly transfers Butter into his pencil case and makes his way to the teachers’ lounge. Just as he’s about to go around the corner, Byeongkwan pulls him to the side.

“I see you have Butter,” he says, lifting the pencil case’s cover and petting the hamster. “We’re off to a good start, then. Dr. Gudak’s already in the lounge. She went in a minute ago.”

Sehyoon peers around the corner. “That gives us four minutes, right? Do we—”

Byeongkwan yanks him out of sight by his hood and holds his hand over his mouth as the door handle turns and Dr. Gudak and Mr. Kang exit.

They stay still until the teachers are out of sight.

“Much earlier than I expected,” Byeongkwan mutters.

Sehyoon’s brain goes haywire when his thumb lingers on his bottom lip for a few seconds before he removes his hand. 

“Wait here.” Byeongkwan inches his way around the corner, looks left and right, and darts into the teachers’ lounge. Less than fifteen seconds later, he returns with Dr. Gudak’s key ring. “Alright, let’s put that hamster back where she belongs.”

“No, Karen, you can’t sue the deli for putting mayo instead of mustard, that’s not—”

Byeongkwan’s eyes widen as the voice gets louder. “Ah, fuck. _Act natural_.” 

They attempt to appear as unsuspicious as possible as they walk to the AP Physics classroom, resulting in Sehyoon whistling offkey while taking unnecessarily large steps and clutching his pencil case to his chest and Byeongkwan acting as if the hallway is the world’s blandest catwalk, swiveling his hips and nearly tripping over himself a few times. The teacher gives them a strange look as he approaches them but is ultimately more concerned with the pressing matter of his wife threatening to call her lawyer over an incorrectly assembled sandwich. The bout of silence that follows after the parties pass each other does nothing to ease the awkwardness.

“I thought I told you to act natural,” Byeongkwan says, taking a hold of the biggest key and unlocking the door to the classroom.

Sehyoon gags as the room’s saltwater-smoke-Febreze®-deviled-egg odor invades his nostrils. “You were the one strutting around like a drunk chicken.”

 _“I was not strutting around like a drunk chicken,”_ Byeongkwan pouts. “If anything, I was strutting around like a drunk peacock.”

Sehyoon almost chokes upon hearing his slight emphasis on the second syllable of the last word. “If you say so. Now, which key did you say is the correct one?” he asks, placing his pencil case next to Butter’s cage and taking the key ring from him.

“The one with the smiley face sticker.”

Sehyoon finds the key immediately and attempts to jam it into the lock. It doesn’t fit.

“Try inserting it the other way,” Byeongkwan suggests.

Once again, the key refuses to go in.

Sehyoon groans in frustration. “Why is this so difficult? Is the keyhole dented or something?” He tries a few more times before giving up and handing the key ring to Byeongkwan. “Here, you give it a shot.”

“I thought you would be better at putting things into holes,” Byeongkwan smirks. “Do I really have to be the one putting it in? I’m not used to—”

“Please, Kwan, we’ve already wasted a few minutes.” 

“Are you sure you’re using the right key?”

“Yeah, I’m sure I’m…” Sehyoon almost drops the key ring. _“Fuck.”_

“What’s wrong? Is there another one with the same sticker?” Byeongkwan asks, stepping forward to take a look.

“All… _All of them_ have smiley face stickers.”

“What? That can’t be right, lemme—oh. _Well.”_

“We’re never returning the hamster,” Sehyoon weakly mumbles.

“We are, we can—”

“How many keys are on this ring? Twenty? Thirty? With my luck, it’ll take forever for us to find the right one.”

“We’ll find it eventually,” Byeongkwan says, taking the key ring. “Let’s try the others.”

They’re on the fifteenth key when something smacks the floor outside. The sound is soon followed by a weary _“Changbin!”_ and a faint apology.

Sehyoon rushes to the door and sees two guys crouching down to help a third shove papers back into a binder halfway down the hallway. “Byeongkwan,” he whispers. _“They’re here.”_

“What? They’re never early.”

“Well, they are this time. They should arrive in less than a minute.”

“Okay, okay, um… I have an idea.” Byeongkwan puts the key ring down and points to a desk. “Sit on top of that and face the door.”

Sehyoon hesitantly does as he asks (or rather, as he’s told). “Uh…?”

“I know how we can scare—um, embarrass them away.” Byeongkwan walks over to Sehyoon and wedges himself between his thighs. “Okay, now slouch a little bit. Do you think you can be loud?”

_“What.”_

Byeongkwan puts his hands on Sehyoon’s knees. “This is a time-sensitive question, Yoon,” he murmurs.

“I think so?”

“Good.”

As soon as he answers, the door clicks open.

“So I’m thinking we change _‘Wow, she’s fine’_ to _‘Wow, she’s hot.’_ It should—”

It is at that moment that Byeongkwan decides to treat Sehyoon’s neck like a scrumptious chocolate chip bagel. Meaning to say, he drags his tongue across it, causing Sehyoon to violently shudder, and then bites down.

Hard.

 _“Ah, Byeongkwan~”_ Sehyoon whines as he begins to suck on the spot. The noise is only one level of breathiness away from being absolutely humiliating. From over Byeongkwan’s shoulder, he watches Chris Bang’s face turn beet-red as he herds the others out of the classroom and slams the door shut.

Byeongkwan steps back, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, and grins. “That should give us some time.”

“You… _You…”_ Sehyoon tries to say something, _anything_ , but every attempt at speech fizzles out like cheap fireworks. “You…?”

The only thing he can really process right now is the muffled bickering outside.

“Yo, you said that no one ever comes here. You said you were _completely sure_ that no one ever—”

“It’s not my fault! I thought it was empty!”

“Yeah, well, you thought wrong, _J.ONE.”_

“My name is cool, you don’t—”

“ _Calm down._ Let’s sit and wait. They’ll come out soon. Probably.”

While Sehyoon quietly malfunctions on the desk, Byeongkwan finally finds the key to Butter’s cage (the twentieth one does the trick) and puts her back in her rightful home.

“Are you gonna come down, or what?” he asks, placing himself between his legs again.

Sehyoon remains silent (and thoroughly _broken_. He imagines his eyes flashing red like warning lights and smoke pouring out of his ears, contributing to the room’s nasty burnt smell).

Byeongkwan grabs his hips roughly—not rough enough to bruise, but rough enough to make him whimper—and helps him off the desk. “The keys are on her desk. Have fun,” he smiles as he opens the door.

“Is it… uh…” Chris peers inside. “Is it clean?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Byeongkwan asks.

Chris raises an eyebrow at Sehyoon, who is simultaneously on cloud nine and in the second circle of hell. “I have reasons to suspect otherwise.”

The trip back to their lockers is a thousand times more awkward, and after Byeongkwan runs off to find Yuchan, Sehyoon slowly slides down the wall until his ass hits the cold floor and whines as he absentmindedly brushes his fingertips over the spot where he bit him.

He makes a resolution before he shuts down for the rest of the day:

He will never steal a hamster again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for anyone interested, my outline for this chapter has points like "KEYS! HICKEYS! 3RACHA!" and I think that accurately represents what this whole fic is like
> 
> ALSO pls check my profile, I wrote a cute unrelated oneshot heheh
> 
> aaaand make sure to check my twitter, particularly my pinned tweet :D
> 
> and and and I’m just gonna stop apologizing for the quality of the plot-related art I include in each chapter,,, like, I drew this one 8 months ago so nfnsjsjsjs


	9. Mistleho (Part 1)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aight so this chapter ended up being a behemoth and I hate having 11k+ chapters so I split it into part 1 and part 2
> 
> also for the chapter title,,, idk man I came up with it in the middle of the night a year ago and I never bothered to come up with a better one so... Welp
> 
> also also yes it’s technically an a.c.e lyric; byeongkwan covered mistletoe by the yummy dude a while back so I am indeed sticking to the theme
> 
> Aaaaand **TW** !!! mention of drugs

Sehyoon picks up the pen and presses the tip against the sheet.

He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t. It’s a dumb idea—he doesn’t know anyone on the list except Junhee, he’s bad at coming up with gift ideas, and besides, he’s broke. He’s worse than broke, actually; he still owes Donghun a few dollars for a cup of hot cocoa from Brew Interactive. He shouldn’t sign up.

He drops the pen into the cup pinned to the bulletin board and heads to his next class.

However, he finds himself in the same position a day later. There are a few more names, only one of which he recognizes—the name of the guy who sits on his left in English. He squints at the list as he fishes a pen out of the cup and clicks it before immediately clicking it again. And so he stands there, clicking the pen over and over again, watching the tip pop out of and retreat into the barrel. He only stops wondering whether or not he should let the holiday spirit possess him when someone behind him clears their throat.

“Are you gonna sign up or not?” a girl asks, tapping her foot.

Sehyoon hands her the pen. “Maybe? I’m still deciding.”

“Decide faster.” The girl adds her name to the list in neat, loopy penmanship, scribbles something on one of the tabs, and drops it into the jar sitting on the chair below the board. She puts the pen in the cup instead of handing it back to him.

Sehyoon gives the list one last scan and gives up yet again.

The next day, the bulletin board looks a little different. Golden tinsel lines the top and paper snowflakes hang between notices about club meetings and tutoring opportunities (courtesy of the student council’s school spirit committee, as Junhee proudly mentioned earlier). The newly-pinned second sheet next to the filled first sheet seems like another explanation for his recent joviality. It’s either that, or he’s finally cracked from the pressure of throwing together several student functions and decorating dozens of classrooms for the holiday season.

_(“Are you sure you can do this?” Sehyoon asks. “You look like you’re having difficulty with… well, everything.”_

_“It’s not easy.” Junhee rubs his eyes, yawns, and shakes red glitter out of his glue-scented hair. “But I can do this. I survived the last few Decembers, so I can survive this one.”)_

As Sehyoon drops his backpack and grabs a pen for the third day in a row, his gaze falls on the last name on the list, scrawled in orange ink:

**_Byeongkwan Kim_ **

Just then, he feels someone rest their chin on his shoulder and watches as they wrap their arms around his waist.

“Thinking of joining Secret Santa?”

“Junhee would be elated, but I’m not really friends with anyone except for you and him. I don’t want to end up panicking and giving someone a pair of socks.”

Byeongkwan’s breath tickles his neck as he laughs. “Come on, live a little. I’ve seen you eyeing up that list. Take risks. Sign up. Dye your hair blond.”

“Dye my hair blond?”

“That’s what I’m doing this weekend,” Byeongkwan says. “And I’m kidding. You’d look cute with blond hair, though.”

Sehyoon can’t stop a giddy grin from spreading across his face, and before his conscience can prevent him from doing so, he steps forward and jots down his name. He then rips a tab from the bottom and comes up with a short wishlist before folding it and dropping it into the jar.

Sehyoon Kim

Sketchbook

“Do you think we’ll get each other?” Byeongkwan asks, still holding him hostage.

“The chances are low. Extremely low. I doubt that I’ll know the person I get.”

“You never know,” Byeongkwan says, tugging at the end of his scarf. “Hey, what are you hiding?”

Sehyoon holds the scarf closer to his neck. “I’m cold, that’s all.”

“Mhm.” Byeongkwan lets go, spins him around—it’s almost embarrassing how easily Sehyoon complies—and pulls his scarf down. He smirks upon seeing his neck—specifically, the large hickey adorning it. “I guess we’re even, huh?”

“I guess so,” Sehyoon says, pulling the scarf back up. “Look, I don’t want anyone to ask questions.”

“But it’s pretty!”

“Pr—Pret— _Pretty?”_ Sehyoon chokes out.

“Yes, pretty.” Byeongkwan pokes the hickey through his scarf, and it might as well be an off button because his mind is blank for the rest of the day.

Sehyoon manages to start thinking (somewhat) coherent thoughts again the next morning. The Secret Santa sign up sheets are now gone, and in their place is a simple reminder to drop by right after first period so everyone can pick a tab from the jar. Calculus is a blur—Sehyoon is too anxious about the identity of his prospective gift receiver to let the passage of time consume his thoughts—and as soon as class ends, he and Byeongkwan make their way to the board. They end up being the last two to draw tabs. Byeongkwan sighs when he gets his (A good sign? A bad sign? Sehyoon isn’t quite sure) and decides not to wait for him. Sehyoon holds his breath and closes his eyes as he picks up the last tab and unfolds it.

Byeongkwan or Junhee, Byeongkwan or Junhee, Byeongkwan or—

Fuck it.

He cracks an eye open.

_Adam MacGovern_

_reese's cups. double stuf oreos. glacier freeze gatorade???_

Adam MacGovern. Who the hell is Adam MacGovern? He’s never heard of an Adam MacGovern in his three years and three months of high school. Is he a freshman? A senior? A theatre kid? A nerd? Maybe he’s an athlete—he wants Gatorade®, after all, which is a shitty gift, now that Sehyoon’s thinking about it. At least it’s an easy gift. As he takes his seat in English, he tries to see if he can remember Adam’s name being called on the loudspeakers. For all he knows, he could’ve scored the winning touchdown in last year’s homecoming game. He should really pay more attention to sports announcements.

“Hey, uh, are you alright? You’re sweating.”

Sehyoon turns to his left. “Oh, Evan, I… Yeah, I’m just having trouble with something.”

“Given that you’ve been staring at that piece of paper since class started, I’m guessing you’re not exactly close with the person you got for Secret Santa,” Evan says.

“I got Adam MacGovern, whoever that is. Do you know him?”

“Yeah, I would say we’re pretty good friends. We’ve been playing football together since middle school. He’s a cool guy. Mostly.” Evan lowers his voice. “He was kinda weird about his ex last year, but to be fair, his ex was… well. His ex wasn’t exactly the best of people. Far worse than any of mine.”

“Poor guy.” Sehyoon then notices the tab on Evan’s desk. The tab with orange ink. “Did you get Kwannie—er, Byeongkwan?”

“Yep. I’ve seen you two hanging out a lot. Are you, uh, _you know?”_

Sehyoon shakes his head. “No, we’re just friends.” He suddenly gets an idea. “Umm… If you don’t mind, can we switch? Since you’re friends with Adam and I’m friends with Byeongkwan. It’s less awkward that way.”

Evan smiles. “Sure, I don’t mind.”

Sehyoon lets out a sigh of relief as they swap tabs. He may have had to pull some strings, but at least he doesn’t have the name of a complete stranger anymore. 

He starts wondering what he should get for Byeongkwan when he flops onto his bed after school. A new pair of gloves? Another Kirby plushie? Lip gloss? God, he’d look even prettier with lip gloss…

Wait. The wishlist. He opens his backpack to look for the tab before realizing that he left it on his desk in English.

Shit.

**evan**

**Today** 3:07 PM

_Heyyy Evan_

_Do you remember what Byeongkwan wants for the Secret Santa thing_

_I kinda lost the tab…_

_Dw I got a pic_

_Thanks!_

_Np my dude_ (^‿^)

...Sweet plants.

Byeongkwan wants _sweet plants._

What the fuck is a sweet plant? Does he want flowers? Who asks for flowers in December? That can’t possibly be what he means… can it?

Sweet plants, sweet plants, _sweet plants…_

Leave it to Byeongkwan to be a complete mystery.

* * *

“Sweet plants. _Sweet plants.”_

Donghun sighs as Hae hops onto his lap. “Repeat that another million times, please. I’m sure it’ll help.”

“Sorry, it’s just… I have no clue what he means. I never have any clue what he means. I long for the day he says or does something I completely understand. He’s so _forward,_ but I never really get anything.”

“The day Byeongkwan is clear about his intentions… That, my friend, is the day of the apocalypse. The same day Jun screams at a normal pitch and Chan develops a citrus allergy. Yep, that’s when we cross our fingers and hope we die quickly.”

Sehyoon rolls his eyes. “Dramatic, much?”

“Be thankful you’re not talking to Jun right now, or else you’d be suffering through a whole soliloquy,” Donghun says, pressing his calloused fingertips against Hae’s toe beans.

“Fair point.”

Suddenly, the sound of Junhee’s laughter starts blasting from Donghun’s flip phone.

“Is that… Is that your ringtone?” Sehyoon grins. “Wow, you’ve got it bad.”

“Shut it.” Donghun answers his phone and Junhee’s laughter immediately turns into his shrieking. “What the—Jun?!”

“They’ve ruined it!” Junhee sobs. “The kitchen! The counter! The cabinet! The rolling pin! _Everything!”_

Something crashes in the background and the noise is soon followed by maniacal laughter and more of Junhee’s shrieking.

Sehyoon stares at Donghun’s phone. “Umm…?”

Donghun shakes his head. “Why are you calling me?”

_“I need reinforcements.”_

“Where are you, exactly?” Donghun asks, softly nudging Hae off of his legs and getting up from his bed.

“Chan’s house. Come over. _Please.”_

“We’ll be there in ten.” Donghun snaps his phone shut, grabs Sehyoon’s arm, and leads him out of his room. “This should be fun.”

Eleven minutes later, Donghun pulls up in Yuchan’s driveway and knocks on the door. A blond, white-substance-covered Byeongkwan answers it.

“Are you here to join the fun? We already made a few batches of cupcakes and some frosting.”

Sehyoon watches as the substance—batter, probably—dribbles down his cheek and drips onto the ground. _Fuck._

“From the smell, I think you burnt the cupcakes a little,” Donghun says, wrinkling his nose.

“Yeah, we got the oven time wrong.”

“Well, try to get it right before you end up burning the house down. I’m sure Chan’s moms won’t appreciate that.” Donghun ties his hair into a tiny ponytail, brushes past him, and makes his way down the hallway.

Byeongkwan sticks out his tongue and licks some of the batter. “Want a taste? Chan added too much sugar, but it’s pretty good.” He swipes a bit of batter off his face and holds his hand in front of Sehyoon’s mouth.

“I—I can’t—”

Byeongkwan points to his cheek. “Or you could have some directly.”

Sehyoon’s desire to lick his face is strong, but his fear of his tongue venturing far too close to Byeongkwan’s lips is stronger. Thankfully, he finds a good excuse and manages to stutter it out. “But… But… salmonella? I don’t want to get salmonella.”

“It’s from the vegan batch,” Byeongkwan says, prodding his bottom lip.

“Oh.” Sehyoon hesitantly licks the batter off of Byeongkwan’s pointer finger with the very tip of his tongue.

However, he doesn’t seem to notice his hesitance, because at that moment he decides to stick three of his fingers into his mouth.

Sehyoon gags as Byeongkwan pushes his tongue down before running his fingertips over his teeth. Now, a rational person would be pushing him away and asking him why the fuck he would ever feel the need to do that. However, Sehyoon is not a rational person. And so his tongue flicks across his fingers, once, twice, three times. Accidentally.

On accident.

This whole thing is all an accident.

_(It is not an accident.)_

“Can you please stop sucking his… Can you stop doing whatever the hell you’re doing?” Donghun sighs, leaning against the wall. He doesn’t look embarrassed or confused or bewildered in the slightest. He just looks… tired. “We need help.”

Sehyoon flinches as Byeongkwan’s fingers come out of his mouth with a sickening pop. They say nothing as they follow Donghun into the kitchen.

The scene that greets them is concerning, to say the least. On the other hand, to say the most—splotches of cake batter decorate the ceiling, flour and sugar dust every countertop, the microwave and oven are producing a cacophony of aggressive beeping, and Yuchan is sitting cross-legged on the kitchen table and scooping handfuls of raw cookie dough out of a bowl and into his mouth. To top it all off, red food dye is pooling next to the half a dozen broken eggshells on the floor. At least, Sehyoon thinks it’s red food dye; the only thing that seems to have been brutally murdered is Junhee’s sanity. He takes a deep breath and gets a whiff of vanilla extract.

“Stop eating that! You’re gonna make yourself sick!” Junhee pleads, attempting to wrench the bowl away.

“But it’s so good!” Yuchan tightens his grip on the bowl and eats the last of the cookie dough.

“Please, we need to make at least a hundred dollars if we want to be on the right track for our prom fundraising plan.” Junhee narrowly avoids stepping in the puddle of food dye on his way to the sink and begins rinsing the bowl. “And if you keep on eating everything, I’ll have to schedule another bake sale, and I don’t have enough time for that.”

“Make time.”

Junhee rushes over and pulls him off the table when he reaches for another bowl of cookie dough. _“Chan!”_

“Can’t you reschedule the bake sale to next week?” Byeongkwan asks, taking his momentary distraction as an opportunity to have a spoonful of dough for himself.

Junhee throws his head back and groans. “Will everyone please stop eating everything?!”

“We already have enough cookie dough,” Byeongkwan says.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you two ate most of the dough and contaminated the rest. And we only have one unburnt batch of cupcakes and half a bowl of frosting. Come on, let’s get this over with already. Can you get some more flour from the pantry, Hun?” Junhee bumps a drawer shut with his nearly-nonexistent ass and retrieves a carton of eggs from the fridge.

Instead of doing as he asks, Donghun walks over to him and points at the one clean, unoccupied chair in the kitchen. “Sit.”

“What? I’m not—”

“You’re overworking yourself. Don’t argue with me; I can see your eyebags. You’re terrible with concealer, by the way. Sit down. We’ll handle everything.”

“But—”

Donghun wipes a splotch of cake batter from his cheek with a rag and hands him a magazine. “Take a break, alright?” He leans over, brushes his bangs up, and kisses his forehead once he sits.

Yuchan pinches his nose and gags. “Right in front of my salad?”

Donghun shoots him a look. “We’re having a moment.”

“Yeah, and I’m having some orange juice,” Yuchan says, opening the fridge. He uncaps the Minute Maid® carton and drinks straight from it.

“You’re disgusting.”

Yuchan wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and puts the orange juice back in the fridge. “You two are disgusting. Disgustingly affectionate. Even more than those two.” He points at Sehyoon and Byeongkwan with his thumb.

“What did we ever do?” the latter pouts. 

Yuchan simply stares at Byeongkwan, who is currently hanging onto Sehyoon like his life depends on it. “What _haven’t_ you done, honestly? Don’t play dumb. Every single day, you guys are—”

Junhee clears his throat. “Yuchan.”

“Come on, don’t act like you don’t see it! I don’t get why—”

 _“Yuchan,”_ Junhee repeats, eyes filled with consternation.

Sehyoon looks around the kitchen, and amongst all the cake batter splotches and food dye stains, he sees a mixture of confusion, impatience, and frustration. His gaze falls to Byeongkwan, and he attempts to look for something past his flour-covered eyelashes—a hint of understanding, maybe—but there seems to be nothing. And if there’s something, it’s indiscernible, as usual. Sehyoon takes a step away from Byeongkwan and gives Junhee a small nod that he hopes he interprets as a _thank you._

Donghun grabs an apron from a hook. “Alright, let’s start baking.”

And just like that, the tension dissipates.

“I know how we can get this done as quickly as possible. Let’s make this a competition,” Donghun says, attempting to clear off the table.

Junhee’s eyes widen. “Are you crazy? That’s—”

“Ah, no, you’re taking a break. Stay there,” Donghun orders when Junhee starts to get up. “You did say you want to get this over with, right? Well, if we compete, we’ll get it done in no time. Wanna be teammates, Chan?”

Something in Yuchan changes. His smile is bright and cheerful as ever, but there’s something else—gremlin-like deviousness. “Sure!”

Sehyoon tries to ignore the menacing glint in Yuchan’s eyes and turns to Byeongkwan. “I guess we’re teammates, then.”

“Yeah, I guess we are.” Similar to Yuchan, there’s a certain glint in Byeongkwan’s eyes, but that glint is accompanied by something darker, something stormy and wild and _determined_. Sehyoon has only seen him like this a few times before—namely, during cheer competitions.

And he is scared.

Sehyoon is so very scared. He knows this baking session will end in murder, arson, sabotage, or Junhee crying into a dirty rag. Maybe all four, if Byeongkwan and Yuchan are feeling particularly zestful.

“Yoon and I will continue with the cupcakes, and you and Dongdong can make the cookie dough,” Byeongkwan says, standing on his toes to look Yuchan in the eyes. “Deal?”

“Deal. Do you have the stopwatch, Jun?”

“Hold on… yes, I have it. Um, begin?”

Yuchan immediately trips Byeongkwan on his way to the fridge and Sehyoon reaches out to catch him.

“Are you alright, Kwannie?” Sehyoon asks, helping him regain his balance. “Did Ch—”

“Now is not the time to be compassionate. We need to _win.”_

Sehyoon’s fear increases tenfold. And this doesn’t bother him too much, actually. He doesn’t really mind the thought of being ordered around.

(Wink wonk.)

“Um, so, uh, what do you want me to—”

“Get the baking soda and the vegetable oil. I think they’re on the bottom shelf of the cupboard above the toaster,” Byeongkwan instructs, snatching a stray egg from the table and cracking it with so much force that a few shell pieces fly out and stick to his apron.

“Um—”

Byeongkwan grabs the front of Sehyoon’s shirt and pulls him in. “Do I need to repeat myself?” he mutters into his ear, brushing his thumb across his fading hickey. “Don’t make me repeat myself, Yoon.”

Sehyoon shudders and swallows thickly. “I won’t.”

Byeongkwan slams another egg on the edge of the bowl and pushes him towards the toaster.

“Crack that any harder, and you’re gonna end up with yolk up your ass,” Donghun snorts, adding a tad too many chocolate chips to his dough.

Junhee looks up from his Better Homes & Gardens® magazine and wrinkles his nose. “I don’t think—”

Yuchan laughs. “And Sehyoon can scramble it for you.”

Sehyoon nearly hits his head on the kitchen counter (Accidentally? Purposely? Both?) while Byeongkwan simply smirks.

Donghun dumps the rest of the chocolate chips into his bowl, effectively turning his dough into a sugary amalgamation which will inevitably turn into something resembling the world’s worst lava cake in the oven. “And suddenly I no longer like scrambled eggs.”

Sehyoon retrieves the ingredients and sets them in front of Byeongkwan. He stares in awe as he starts measuring everything with frightening speed and accuracy, tossing just the right amount of each ingredient into the bowl without so much as a second glance. Sure, he’s getting baking powder and salt everywhere, but it’s still pretty damn impressive. When he finishes mixing a third batch of batter, his gaze flickers up.

“Are you gonna help me, or are you gonna stand there and enjoy the view?”

Sehyoon scratches the nape of his neck and looks away. “Sorry, I… It’s mesmerizing, really. You’re mesmerizing.”

“If you say so.” Byeongkwan slides one of the bowls towards him, his face flushing pink. “Here, whisk this. It’s for the frosting.”

Sehyoon slowly starts whisking the creamy mixture, careful not to let any of it spill over the sides.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Byeongkwan says. He walks behind him, rests his chin on his shoulder, wraps his hand around his, and rests the other on his arm. “Here, you have to whisk harder.”

Some of the cream splatters onto Sehyoon’s apron as he starts moving his hand.

“You’re making a mess,” Sehyoon mutters, his grip becoming looser as Byeongkwan leans into him.

“We can clean it up later. Come on, think about something that makes you mad. That helps.”

Sehyoon flinches as a few drops land on his face, just barely missing his eyes. “‘Mad’ as in _angry_ or ‘mad’ as in _crazy?_ Because I don’t get angry.”

“Really? There has to be something that makes you angry.”

“There isn’t. There are things that make me mad in the second sense, but not the first.”

Byeongkwan steps back. “Oh? Like what?”

“Do I need to say it?” Sehyoon sighs. “Like… Like you. You drive me mad. You’re so… You’re so distracting.”

“Maybe I should try and distract you a little less, then. Can you focus on the frosting for a few minutes?”

“Yeah, sure.” Sehyoon rolls up his sleeves, clears his mind, and goes to town on the cream, scraping the whisk against the bottom of the bowl until the mixture turns into stiff peaks.

Byeongkwan simply stands there, the bowls of batter now forgotten. “I… _Wow.”_

“Am I doing it right?” Sehyoon asks, continuing to whisk as he looks him in the eyes.

“Yes, you’re… Yeah, um…?”

“Look who’s enjoying the view now,” Yuchan teases. He pulls a drawer open and fishes out a couple of cookie-cutters.

Byeongkwan pouts. “Shouldn’t you be paying attention to your own shit?”

“I can multitask.”

Byeongkwan throws a plastic teaspoon at his head.

 _“Ow.”_ Yuchan grabs a bag of all-purpose flour, turns around, kicks the spoon aside, and marches up to Byeongkwan.

Donghun looks up at the ceiling. “I swear, if you—” 

Yuchan takes a handful of flour and throws it at Byeongkwan’s face, making him screw his eyes shut and start coughing.

“So it’s like that, huh?” Byeongkwan rubs his eyes, takes the whisk from Sehyoon, and dips it into one of the bowls of batter. He then flicks the whisk in Yuchan’s direction. _“Your move.”_

“Hmph.” Yuchan runs to the fridge and fetches a container of eggs.

Junhee springs up from his seat and moves in front of Byeongkwan. “Okay, no. That’s where I draw the line. I can’t let you throw eggs at people.”

“One of my moms boiled them earlier. It’s fine.”

“You still shouldn’t—”

Yuchan winds up.

_“Chan—”_

“I’d suggest that you get out of the way.”

“I’m not—”

“Fine, it’s your call.” Yuchan pitches the egg at him.

_Crack._

As soon as the eggshell breaks, they realize Yuchan was wrong—neither of his mothers had boiled that particular egg earlier.

(Whoops.)

Junhee screams as the egg whites start trickling down his forehead.

“Oh.” Yuchan’s eyes widen. “ _Oh._ Well, uh… At least it’s good for your hair?”

 _“Sink!”_ Junhee screeches. Part of the yolk slides down his cheek. “Get me to the sink!”

Donghun and Yuchan each take a hold of one of his arms, usher him to the sink, turn on the taps, and dunk his head under the running water.

“So… cold,” Junhee mumbles, frantically groping around for a towel. Once he gets his tiny hands on a dish rag, he tries to scrub the rest of the egg off his face. However, to his bewilderment (and everyone else’s amusement), it sticks.

Byeongkwan covers his smile with his hand as he swats at his face.

Sehyoon sighs and wraps his fingers around his wrist. “Hey, don’t forget what I said in the tree,” he mutters under his breath.

“I haven’t, and I won’t.” Byeongkwan offers him the tiniest sliver of a grin. “Uh, Junhee? I think that’s the rag we used to mop up the honey buttercream frosting.”

“No kidding,” Junhee whines, his voice muffled by the rag. He turns around, leans back, and tries to move his face under the tap. “Can you help me rinse it off?”

“We’re not gonna waterboard you,” Donghun says flatly. “I mean, you’d probably be into that, but now is not the time.” He carefully wets the towel and peels it off his face, provoking several complaints.

Junhee pats his face dry and turns off the taps. “Alright, let’s clean up a little before we continue. Decorating is sure to be a mess, and I don’t want to get rid of everything all at once.”

“But—”

“No buts. Please, it’ll be therapeutic. Calm down and clean,” Junhee says, tossing a sponge over his shoulder.

Yuchan catches it and starts scrubbing a table. “Okay—let’s start this competition over. Whoever cleans their mess faster gets to make the loser do whatever they want. Up for it, Kwan?”

Junhee frowns. “That’s not the point. That’s the direct opposite of the point, really. Please, guys, can we—” 

“You bet.” Byeongkwan tries to wriggle free from Sehyoon’s grasp and gives him an odd look when he doesn’t let go. “Uh, you can let go of me now, Yoon.”

“I’m trying.” No matter how hard Sehyoon tries to remove it, his palm remains glued to his wrist.

“Did you get any frosting on your hand?” Byeongkwan asks, waving his arm around.

Sehyoon bites his lip. “I mean, I tried not to.”

“But did you?”

“Maybe.”

Byeongkwan curses under his breath as Yuchan and Donghun finish clearing one of the counters. “Crap, we must’ve added too much honey… Okay, you know what? Follow my lead. We can beat them.”

“Uh—?” Sehyoon yelps as Byeongkwan drags him to a table and wipes it with a clean rag. His knuckles skim across the surface as he does so and become coated with sugar and flour. “There has to be a better—”

“Trust me. Don’t resist—act like a rag doll. It’ll be faster that way.”

_“Uh—?”_

“Trust me!” Byeongkwan insists, almost dipping his hand into the bowls as he pushes them aside.

Sehyoon gives up and lets him puppet him around the kitchen, and before they know it, their side is completely clean—unlike Donghun and Yuchan’s.

“Looks like we won,” Byeongkwan grins. “And at a disadvantage, too. What do you think their penalty should be, Yoon?”

Yuchan sighs. “Anything but homework. Please, God, as long as I don’t have to do your homework, I’ll be fine.”

“I think we should unstick ourselves first,” Sehyoon suggests, leading Byeongkwan to the sink. “I can’t hold on to you forever.”

“But you can for a little while longer, right? I don’t mind.”

Sehyoon gives him a semi-apologetic look as he puts his hand under the tap. “Sorry, but I’d like to be able to use my arm again.”

“Fair.” Byeongkwan rubs his wrist as soon as it detaches from his hand and dries it off. “Alright, Donghun, Yuchan—I think I’ve come up with a reasonable penalty for you. You have to run the bake sale stand tomorrow.”

Junhee raises his eyebrows. “Oh, that’s not that bad.”

“During the underclassmen’s lunch period.”

“Now that’s just plain evil,” Donghun says. “I’d rather clean the boys’ locker room than deal with those fetuses.”

Yuchan elbows him. “Don’t give him ideas,” he hisses under his breath. “Do you know how many stains are on the walls?”

“Too many, I’m guessing.”

“You said I could make you do anything,” Byeongkwan says, shrugging. “Dealing with a horde of sugar-craving fifteen-year-olds can’t be too difficult. It’s almost like dealing with yourself.”

“There’s a _difference—_ ”

Just then, the Mii Channel music starts playing, albeit muffled.

“Where’s that noise coming from?” Donghun wanders over to one of the bowls of frosting. “It sounds like—oh. Oh no.”

Sehyoon’s eyes widen with horror as he pats his pockets. His _empty_ pockets. “Please. Please tell me that isn’t…”

Donghun slowly reaches into the bowl with a spoon and fishes out Sehyoon’s phone. “Welp. ”

Junhee winces. “Ouch, that’s unfortunate.”

“You’re gonna need a lot of rice for this.” Donghun awkwardly wipes off most of the frosting. “Um, I think Eunsuh’s trying to call you,” he says, placing it on the table next to Sehyoon.

“Eunsuh…?” Sehyoon narrows his eyes at his phone. “Shit. _Eunsuh._ I’m supposed to drive her to volleyball tryouts in… _fuck._ Fifteen minutes. Can we go, Donghun?”

“I have never been more ready to leave someone’s house.”

“But what about the rest of the competition? I don’t wanna have to do everything else without my _partner_ ,” Byeongkwan says, smirking.

There it is again— _that_ word and _that_ tone. That not-so-clear, infinitely confusing tone. Sehyoon shakes his head. “I’m sure you and Yuchan can do it on your own.”

“Hmph. I guess we can,” Byeongkwan mumbles. “But are you really going outside like that?”

“Like what?”

“Your sweatshirt looks thin.”

“I’ll be fine,” Sehyoon reassures.

“That’s what you always say. And then you’re never fine,” Byeongkwan says quietly. “My hat’s on the stairs. Take it.”

“But—”

“I stole your sweatshirt. It’s only fair.”

Sehyoon pauses and looks at him—specifically, the splotch of batter right under his left eye. As he reaches up to wipe it off, he imagines his heart bouncing around in his pericardial cavity like the pixelated ball in a game of Pong on hard mode. He does his best to ignore it as he quickly brushes his thumb across his cheek.

No reaction. Nothing. Just the same, warm smile. 

For a second, Sehyoon looks down, and he half-expects his heart to slowly stutter into silence, accompanied by the phrase “Game Over!” flashing before his eyes.

And he’s tempted, he’s so, _so_ tempted to tell him it isn’t fair, it’s never fair.

But he doesn’t.

(Because he is a dumbass. A terrified dumbass.)

* * *

Sehyoon finds himself wandering towards the cafeteria during the break before his lunch period, which just so happens to be the underclassmen’s lunch period. Just outside the doors, a few freshmen—their eyes are far too lively to belong to sophomores—are lined up (or rather, clumped) next to a festive table bearing tins of holiday-themed baked goods. He waits for them to pay up and take their gingerbread cookies before he approaches the two seniors running the stand.

Donghun slips a wad of one-dollar bills into a jar and sits on an empty space on the table. “Nice hat. Planning on giving it back?”

“Not unless he asks.”

“Guess you’re keeping it forever, then.” Donghun shrugs. “Are you gonna buy anything, or are you just here to give us company?”

“The overpriced snickerdoodles look tempting, but I’ll pass.” Sehyoon leans in. “Uh… What’s up with him?” he whispers, gesturing to Yuchan.

Yuchan lets out a frustrated hum as he continues staring at a window down the hallway and drumming his fingers on the table.

“He’s been like this since we started our shift,” Donghun says, not bothering to lower his voice. “You good, Chan?”

Yuchan groans and rests his chin on the table. “This is torture. Worse than torture. I feel like I’m dying.”

“I’ll take that as a _no_ ,” Donghun deadpans. “We’ve only had a few customers. Wait until we get towards the end of the lunch period before you start complaining.”

“I’m not talking about the bake sale. I’m talking about _that_.” Yuchan raises his arm and vaguely gestures.

“...The window? You’re moping over a window?” Sehyoon asks.

“Not the window. _That_.”

Donghun sighs. “Could you bother being a little more specific, or…?”

“The snow! It’s snowing!” Yuchan says, leaning back in his chair and throwing his hands up. “It’s a whole winter wonderland out there, and I’m stuck inside running a bake sale.”

“You’ll live.”

“Will I, though? How can you be sure of that? There was a guy in town who passed out from serotonin deprivation. He couldn’t go to his best friend’s wedding so he just kinda”—Yuchan bangs his head on the table and closes his eyes—“like that. I heard about it a few months ago.”

Donghun stares at him for a few seconds before slowly nodding. “...Uh huh.” He peers into the cafeteria. “It looks like we have a batch of customers coming our way. Mind stepping aside, Sehyoon?”

Yuchan perks up. “Sehyoon? Oh, I didn’t notice it was you! Can we talk about something real quick?”

“Now? Shouldn’t you be doing your job and—”

“It’ll only take a few minutes,” Yuchan reassures. He stands up, walks around the table, and starts leading him away.

“Chan, what are you—you can’t just leave!” Donghun calls after them, indignant.

“We’ll be back soon!” Yuchan shouts down the hallway as he drags Sehyoon into the nearest restroom.

“Do you have something against talking to me in public areas?” he asks.

“No, it’s just… This is a sensitive issue, that’s all. I don’t want you to freak out and alarm anyone.”

Sehyoon quirks an eyebrow. “...Are you doing something illegal?”

“Excuse you, but I’ve never done anything illegal in my life.”

“Didn’t you break into school two months ago? And if I remember correctly, you bought and tried to distribute cocaine on school grounds last year.”

Yuchan rolls his eyes and crosses his arms. “That was an accident.”

_“An accident.”_

“I thought it was fancy Brazilian sugar!”

“You thought a guy in a dark hoodie was selling fancy Brazilian sugar in the boys’ bathroom,” Sehyoon says flatly.

“Well… yes.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t trust guys in dark hoodies who hang around in the bathroom.”

“Yeah, maybe I shouldn’t.” Yuchan looks him up and down and takes a step back. “Anyways, I’ve never done anything illegal _on purpose and without coercion_ , and I’m certainly not trying to change that. I just need you to do me a favor.”

“And that favor is...?”

“I ended up finishing my bake sale stuff before Kwan did, so he owes me something,” Yuchan begins.

“Okay, what does he—” 

“Shh! I’m getting there. Look, every single December, I lose that Instagram contest. Every. Single. December. And it’s always that guy from photo club who beats me by a few likes—Mingyu. This year, I fully intend to beat his six-two majestic-photo-taking ass. And _you_ are going to help me with that.”

“Are you talking about the mistletoe contest? The one where you take a picture of a couple… you know… _um._ And it gets featured in the yearbook. That contest?”

“Yeah, that’s the one.”

Sehyoon’s heart drops. “And you’re gonna take a picture of you and Kwannie?”

“That’s new,” Yuchan muses.

“What?”

“Kwannie. I’ve never heard anyone call him that before.”

“Well—I—That’s irrelevant.” Sehyoon crosses his arms and looks down. “So, you’re gonna take a picture of you and Kwan?”

“Of course not. I’m gonna take a photo of _you_ and Kwan.”

“Oh.” Sehyoon lets out a sigh of relief. “ _Oh_.” His relief quickly morphs into panic. “ _Oh_ , no way, I can’t—I mean we’ve never—he doesn’t—would he even—?”

“And this is why I dragged you into the bathroom,” Yuchan sighs. “You two don’t actually have to kiss. You just have to look like you’re about to kiss. It shouldn’t be too difficult, considering you always look like you’re a few seconds away from doing that.”

Sehyoon turns pink. “Why’d you have to say the k-word?”

“Kiss?”

“Don’t say it again!”

A wicked grin stretches across Yuchan’s face. “You could also kiss him for real. Kiss Byeongkwan, kiss Byeongkwan, kiss Byeongkwan~” he chants.

“Cut it out!” Sehyoon places his hands over his ears as his cheeks heat up. “Stop making me think things!”

“Kiss Byeongkwan, kiss Byeongkwan, kiss Byeongkwan, kiss—”

“Kiss me?”

Sehyoon looks over Yuchan’s shoulder and catches sight of Byeongkwan in the doorway. It is at that moment that he starts pondering if Yuchan was right and people are really able to pass out from serotonin deprivation, and if it could possibly happen to him, as that is the only way he sees himself escaping this hellish nightmare. 

He begins to perspire as Byeongkwan walks past them, openly staring at his mouth.

“A little too chapped for my liking, but the shape is nice,” he comments. He pauses and skims his fingertips across Sehyoon’s lips. “They look like they would be fun to bite,” he adds before disappearing into a stall.

Sehyoon heads out of the bathroom and walks straight into someone’s locker. “Bite,” he echoes, keeping his head there.

Yuchan trails after him. “Hey, sorry about that. I didn’t—”

“ _Bite_ ,” Sehyoon repeats, his voice strained.

“Are you good? I can ask Junhee and Hun to do it if you don’t want to.”

“I want to, but… _gahhh._ I am not good. Not good at all.”

“Do you need me to stay here with you, or—?”

“I… I think I would like to be alone.”

Yuchan awkwardly pats him on the back. “If you say so. I’ll come get you when my shift’s over so we can take the photo. Uh… get well soon?”

“Thanks?”

As Yuchan shuffles away, Sehyoon stares at the floor and tries to figure out how he’s going to survive this photo. Maybe if he closes his eyes, maybe if he tries to imagine someone else, maybe if they hug instead, maybe, maybe, maybe…

Twenty minutes later, he reaches a conclusion—he just has to power through it. He’ll simply have to deal with Byeongkwan’s face being only a few inches away from his. He’ll have to do his best not to cry when his gaze inevitably wanders down to Byeongkwan’s lips. He can do this. He’ll make it.

**living proof that redheads are demon spawn**

**Today** 12:01 PM

_i’m free now :DDD_

_we’re by room 220, it’s the nearest one that has mistletoe_

_I’ll be there_

_Give me a minute_

Sehyoon maneuvers his way around the clusters of people heading to the cafeteria and soon finds himself in the 220–229 hallway.

“Ready for that photo, Yoon?” Byeongkwan smacks his lips and smirks.

Sehyoon was wrong. He can’t do this. He won’t make it. “No, not really.”

“Get ready, then.” Yuchan adjusts a dial on his camera—or rather, Donghun’s camera, going off the Bonobono sticker on the strap. He takes a few practice shots and presses a couple of buttons. “Okay, stand over in the doorway.”

Sehyoon takes a deep breath and positions himself under the sprig of mistletoe suspended by a red ribbon. Fucking hell. They’re actually doing this.

Yuchan holds the camera in front of his face. “What are you waiting for? Gaze into each other’s eyes lovingly. I wanna feel the tension. Make John Green quake in his boots.”

Byeongkwan scoots towards Sehyoon and places his hand on the nape of his neck.

“Closer.”

He pulls him in.

_“Closer.”_

Sehyoon lets out an internal banshee shriek as the corners of Byeongkwan’s mouth turn upwards.

“A little clo—”

“I don’t think we can get any closer without getting too close,” Byeongkwan says, winking. “Unless you wanna go for it.” He makes a quick biting motion and smiles, causing the volume of Sehyoon’s internal banshee shrieking to increase by several dozen decibels.

“I’ll pass,” Sehyoon mutters weakly. “Besides, my lips are too chapped, right?”

“Right. I mean, I’m sure it would spice up the photo, but… I’m joking, of course. Yep. Too chapped.” A puff of hot air escapes from Byeongkwan’s mouth and caresses the other’s lips.

Sehyoon lets out a bewildered squeak.

 _Click. Click_.

Both of them turn their heads.

“Pay no attention to me. I’m just taking pictures,” Yuchan says, checking his camera in between shutters. “Carry on.”

Byeongkwan laughs before puckering his lips and directly blowing on Sehyoon’s mouth. “Have I ever told you you’re cute?”

Sehyoon lets out another squeak upon feeling the warmth of his breath. “If I remember correctly, yes,” he says, the tips of his ears reddening under his hat. “And I’m still not sure I believe you.”

_Click._

“You should. I’d never lie to you, Yoonie.”

Sehyoon sighs. “I know.”

_Click. Click._

Byeongkwan hums contentedly and rubs his thumb back and forth on his neck. “I really do mean it, though. You’re cute. The absolute cutest.”

Sehyoon can’t keep himself from smiling. “How can you give away your title so easily?” he teases, resting his forehead against his for a brief moment.

_Click. Click._

“My title?” Byeongkwan blinks and tilts his head ever-so-slightly. “ _Oh._ My title. But I’m not… I mean… I didn’t know you could fl—” He hesitates. “Do you really think so?”

Sehyoon’s smile stretches wider. “How could I not?” 

_Click._

Yuchan clears his throat. “I think these are good enough,” he says, examining the camera. “Thanks for the help, guys. Now if you don’t mind me, I’ll be off trying to convince Hun to build a snowman with me later.”

Neither of them leaves the doorway when he starts heading towards the cafeteria.

“I’m not that cute,” Byeongkwan says. “Look me in the eyes and tell me you find this cute.” He blows on his mouth once again.

“I find it extremely cute,” Sehyoon grins. “Plus, my face is cold, so you’re doing me a favor.”

“How about this?” Without warning, Byeongkwan leans in and blows into his ear. “Bet you didn’t think _that_ was cute.”

“Nope, still the cutest.” Sehyoon ignores the growing possibility that he might do or say something he’ll regret and continues coasting down his path of nervous but fixed affection like a cyclist without training wheels. “And the prettiest. And the most talented. And the sweetest,” he adds, wrapping his arms around his waist. “I’m not letting go until you accept that you are.”

“Why would you ever think I would want you to let go?” Byeongkwan murmurs, resting his cheek on his scarf. “I’ll accept that I’m the cutest on one condition—you accept that you’re the most beautiful. We’ll never get anywhere if we carry on like this.”

Sehyoon’s blush spreads from his ears to his cheeks. “Fine. I accept that I’m the most—wait, what do you mean by ‘get anywhere’?” He pauses. “Do you… Do you want to _go somewhere?”_ He holds his breath as he waits for an answer.

What if his fantasies are correct? What if Byeongkwan wants what he wants? What if he isn’t really joking about everything? _What if—_

Just as Byeongkwan is about to speak up, Sehyoon feels something buzz against his hip.

Byeongkwan looks down and removes his arms from his waist. “I can’t, sorry. I have to go meet up with the cheer team. See you later.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Sehyoon says, but Byeongkwan is already out of earshot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, part 2 should be out in 2 weeks or so... stay tuned, folks, and happy holidays! 
> 
> again, sorry for being gone for so long... I have a lot of self-assigned art projects to work on, including a whole animatic, and I'm still trying to find a good balance between my hobbies :')


	10. Mistleho (Part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as promised, here's part 2~
> 
> god, I can't believe it's been a full year since I posted the prologue. time sure flies, doesn't it?
> 
> 70,000+ words, 100+ comments, 250+ kudos, nearly 50 bookmarks, and roughly 4,000 hits at the time of posting this chapter,,, jfc y'all are something else (really though, if I told my jan 8th 2020 self where I'd be with this dumb fic today, they probably wouldn't believe me)

A bell softly rings as Sehyoon opens the door to the flower shop his mother recommended. He probably shouldn’t have waited until the day before the exchange to find a gift, but it’s better now than never. As he heads into the aisles of watering cans and hanging planters, he wonders what Byeongkwan would like—a bouquet of violets tied with vibrant ribbons? Aloe vera in a glow-in-the-dark pot? Maybe, by “sweet plants,” he meant fruit, and Sehyoon is in the wrong place entirely. He makes a mental note to stop by the grocery on the way home, just in case, and hopes that what he intends to buy isn’t too expensive.

He stops when he reaches the roses. Pink, white, red, yellow—no orange. His own orange roses are far from blooming, too, so he’ll have to think of something else. Crap. He paces up and down the aisles, occasionally stopping to examine stems and petals, until the woman at the register speaks up.

“Pardon me, but are you looking for anything in particular, Sehyoon?”

He picks up a bouquet and sniffs it before putting it back. “Something for a friend.”

“Hm. Would it happen to be the boy your mother mentioned?”

“Yeah, it’s him.” He doesn’t need to inquire further to know exactly who she’s talking about.

“Hmm. Tell me about him. Maybe I can help you.”

“He’s… interesting,” Sehyoon starts out. “Confusing, touchy, bold. Caring. He has the most stunning smile I’ve ever seen. I… I love him. A lot. He deserves something special. Something he’ll remember.”

“I take it you’re not looking to buy any red roses, then,” she says, leaning on the counter.

He shakes his head. “Would you happen to have any orange ones? They’re his favorites.”

“I’m afraid not. We’ve never tried breeding them. Red for romance, yellow for friendship… Why have something in between? I don’t see why anyone would want to give off mixed signals.”

“Yeah. Mixed signals. I understand.” He nods and turns away from the roses. “Any other suggestions?”

“This might seem a little out-there, but I have something in mind.”

“Really? What?”

She smiles. “Check the far end of aisle four. You already have the family-friend discount, but I’ll add onto that if you buy one of them.”

He follows her directions and almost laughs upon viewing her recommended plant. “I’m no expert with flower language, but these don’t look too friendly or appreciative.”

“I’m sure he’ll love it.” She then mumbles something.

“What was that?”

“Ah, it’s based off of something a customer of mine said—your friend’s grandmother, I think.” She repeats the phrase, slowly but clearly. “If he can love you, he can love that plant.”

* * *

Sehyoon attempts to cram his bag of presents into his locker and curses when a poorly-wrapped box threatens to fall out.

“Need any help?”

“I’m good.” He hastily shoves the box back into the bag and tries to push his locker shut. 

“You sure?”

“Yep.” He turns to the side and rams his shoulder into the wall—to no avail, unfortunately.

“You sure you’re sure?”

He raises his leg and kicks the locker, but it swings open instead.

Byeongkwan grabs his shoulders and pulls him back as the locker door comes within an inch of his face.

“...Maybe not.”

Byeongkwan laughs and ruffles Sehyoon’s hair. “Here, I’ll close it for you. Promise I won’t peek.” He covers his eyes as he adjusts the bag and properly shuts his locker. “There, you’re all set. By the way, where’d you put my hat?”

“It’s in my backpack. Why, do you want it back?”

“No, keep it. It suits you,” Byeongkwan says, lacing their fingers together as they head down the hallway. “I envy whoever you got for Secret Santa. I bet they’ll love your presents.” He squeezes his hand.

“What?”

“You seem nervous. Look at me—you have nothing to worry about. If I were in their place, the simple fact that they’re from you would be enough to make me happy.”

“It would?”

“Hey, don’t look so shocked. You know I lo—You know I appreciate you, right?”

“Yeah,” Sehyoon says quietly. “Yeah, I know.”

They’re barely through the door to their calculus classroom when the loudspeaker starts up with a muted beep.

“Good morning, everyone! As you all know, today is the last day before the highly-anticipated winter break, as well as the day of our even-more-highly-anticipated annual Secret Santa exchange,” Junhee announces, far too good-natured to be completely genuine. After three years of listening to his student council reports, Sehyoon is able to recognize the cause of his cheeriness immediately—Junhee is absolutely not prepared for the exchange. At all. 

Byeongkwan snorts. “Someone’s excited. Can he at least let us sit down, first?”

Sehyoon imagines he would be subjected to a numbly pleasant and marginally hostile smile if Junhee were there.

“I hope those who are participating have taken this event seriously and put great amounts of love and care into their gifts. If you signed up for this year’s exchange, please report to room two-twenty-one after last period. Thank you, and have a _fantastic_ day!”

_Beep._

Byeongkwan takes the seat across from Sehyoon. “He sounds like he hasn’t blinked in several minutes. Is he okay?”

“I’ll ask him later. It’s probably stress. Maybe he forgot to decorate something. Maybe someone didn’t bring something for the exchange.” He pauses. “Maybe it’s Maybelline.”

Byeongkwan’s face freezes, and Sehyoon fears he said something wrong until his eyes scrunch and his lips part to reveal a small grin. His grin stretches wider and wider and laughter soon bubbles from the back of his throat—a vibrant, impish noise reminiscent of bells. The graduality of it all is almost surreal; for a boy keen on living life with full vividness at full speed, an action hampered by insecurity seems unthinkable—and yet, it’s happening. But through this slow, unsure process, through this bout of crescendoing laughter, his hands rest on his desk. His smile remains uncovered; his laughter remains unmuffled. And a sense of triumph swells in Sehyoon’s chest—the same sort of triumph that glimmers in Byeongkwan’s eyes whenever he’s torn the other’s walls down.

For a second, everything between them feels fair.

Sehyoon looks away and rubs the nape of his neck. “It was a dumb joke.”

“I know. But it’s a dumb joke from you, and that’s the kind of dumb joke that matters the most, right? A dumb joke from someone you… someone you’re friends with.”

“I… Yeah, I suppose.”

Rather than hypothesizing about what the hell Junhee is stressing over, Sehyoon spends the rest of the period thinking back to what the shopkeeper said.

_If he can love you, he can love that plant._

Love. _Love._ She said Byeongkwan loves him. But how? Platonically, or…? Sehyoon can’t bring himself to consider the other option. This has to be a joke—a game of telephone gone wrong. Byeongkwan said something to his grandmother and his grandmother said something to the shopkeeper and the shopkeeper said something to him. And there’s no way all those somethings align; the original message must’ve been twisted somewhere. A stuttered word could be to blame, or perhaps a misheard phrase. Or maybe Byeongkwan’s grandmother assumed he feels a certain way. Maybe the storekeeper assumed he feels a certain way from what his grandmother relayed to her. The whole situation is a headache and a half, and Sehyoon wraps up his thoughts: Byeongkwan doesn’t love him. At least, not the way he wishes he would.

After class ends, Sehyoon sets off to find Junhee.

**oceanhee**

**Today** 8:51 AM

_Where are you_

_The void :]_

_...Physically_

_Library w/ Hun and Chan_

_Table by the M-Z biographies_

_Alright, see you there_

Byeongkwan glances at his screen as they make their way down the hallway. “I thought they didn’t allow food in the library.”

“Huh?”

“They’ll kick you out if you bring food. I mean, you might be able to sneak in a snack like me, but everyone’s gonna notice a full-course meal like yourself,” Byeongkwan says, his expression as serious as possible. However, as soon as he meets eyes with the other, they both smile.

Sehyoon shakes his head. “...And I thought _my_ jokes were dumb. That has to be the cheesiest joke you’ve ever made.”

“Worth it.”

“Hm?”

Byeongkwan points at his mouth. “Seeing you smile like that. Definitely worth it.” He opens the library door and the two of them step inside.

At the other end, Junhee stands up and waves them over. On the table is a messy pile of papers, a few of which Donghun is examining, and a heavily-stickered bright yellow laptop. Yuchan collects more papers from a nearby printer and unceremoniously drops them onto the pile.

Donghun drags the tip of a red pen across a sheet of paper. “Two-thirty-three’s a bust. Chess club called dibs last week.” He scrunches another sheet into a ball and tosses it into a trash can. “How many members are there, anyways? Seven? Eight? Gotta be less than ten. What do they need a whole classroom for?”

“You’re being generous. They get five on a good day, including the coheads,” Yuchan snorts. “I’ve got a fresh stack for us to look over, hot off the press—Gudak through Kang.”

“Uh, what’s going on?” Sehyoon asks. “Is everything alright, Jun?” He looks at the pile of papers. The part by Junhee’s side is composed of club notices and meeting announcements, whereas the part by Donghun and Yuchan’s corner is composed of teacher schedules. 

“Not pointing fingers, but _someone_ didn’t book a room for the Secret Santa exchange,” Donghun says, crumpling up and tossing away another sheet of paper. “That same someone also lied about booking a room to the entire school earlier.”

Junhee groans and runs his hands through his hair. “The junior class reps said they would cover me. And evidently, they forgot.”

“Don’t worry. We’re covering for you now,” Yuchan reassures. He pats Junhee’s head before rifling through his newly-printed stack. “Hey, I think one-nineteen’s free.”

Donghun points at a red X with his pen. “Unless you wanna interfere with the December issue of _The Clover Gazette,_ I’d recommend you stay away from there. Stay away from the entire hallway, while you’re at it. There’s no doubt I’ll be fighting the other photographers over whose shot makes the front page.” He adds more Xs onto the map of the school.

“Why can’t you use two-twenty-one?” Byeongkwan asks, peering over Donghun’s shoulder. “It’s one of the only rooms you haven’t crossed out, and besides, it’s the one you said we’d be using.”

Donghun sighs. “Wanna explain, Jun?”

“I made the announcement before first period since Mr. Cue is never early,” Junhee starts out. “So he doesn’t know about it. There’s a department meeting in two-twenty-one five minutes after last period”—Yuchan slides one of the schedules towards Sehyoon and Byeongkwan—“and I can’t get him to push it back.”

“I thought teachers loved you,” Byeongkwan says. “And I haven’t really spoken to him, but Mr. Cue seems nice. Why can’t you convince him?”

“Mr. Cue is… well, he’s the exception. Back in sophomore year, when he still taught French, I brought Lion into school for that skit project, and he, um… Lion marked his territory on his desk. So, no. Not all teachers love me.”

“Wait, is that why you switched to Spanish?” Sehyoon asks.

“...No comment.”

Yuchan pulls his laptop closer and opens a new window. “If he won’t move the meeting, then I will.”

Sehyoon raises an eyebrow. “How?”

“I picked up some things from a kid in the computer science club before I got kicked out, and I think now is the perfect time to use them,” Yuchan says, cracking his knuckles.

“You got yourself kicked from CS club?” Byeongkwan asks. “What, did you spill coffee on someone’s laptop?”

“Good guess, but no. I tried to make Papa’s Cupcakeria available on school WiFi without a VPN and I… well, let’s just say that I may have given one of the school computers a virus or two. Or three. Or eleven. I forget, honestly.” Yuchan shrugs and looks at Sehyoon. “I’m taking back my statement from a few weeks ago. I’m about to do something mildly illegal. On purpose. And without coercion.”

 _“Mildly,”_ Junhee echoes. “Chan, you can’t—”

“Do you want a room or not?” Yuchan runs his fingers over the trackpad, opens up Mr. Cue’s Facebook page, and lowers his voice. “The password hint for his school website administrator account is ‘ifsl, wedding, no caps.’ Gotta be an acronym for something. Hopefully I’ll find it somewhere here.”

Junhee’s jaw goes slack. “You’re—You’re hacking his _—”_

“It’s barely hacking—he’s just bad at coming up with passwords. Sit back and let the professional do the work, Jun.”

 _“You_ _are sixteen years old.”_

“Excuse you, but it’s sixteen years and eleven months and three weeks.” Yuchan rolls his eyes. “Voila! Here it is—a post from seven years ago. ‘I’d like to announce that I am now married to the love of my life.’ Blah blah blah… ‘I feel so lucky.’ That’s gotta be it.”

Sehyoon watches with a combination of fascination and horror as he switches back to the tab with the account login, types “ifeelsolucky” into the text input box, and gains access. 

“You are a terrifying entity,” Donghun says.

“Thank you. I pride myself on that.” He quickly drafts a new post declaring that the meeting’s been moved across the hall to room two-twenty-two and clicks the submit button. “I copied an old post word for word, and knowing the tech maintenance department, they’ll blame it on a glitch. Delayed the post’s email notification ‘til the meeting time, too, so it’ll be too late to change it back once he finds out. You’re welcome.”

Junhee blinks. “I don’t know whether to hug you or cry.”

“Both options are good. I also take payment in the form of cookies and pats on the back.”

“...I’ll keep that in mind.”

The rest of the day goes smoothly, much to Sehyoon’s surprise. Not a single call to the principal’s office is announced over the loudspeakers; not a single detention or suspension or expulsion is issued. When his last class ends, he takes his bag of presents from his locker, heads down the hallway, and opens the door to room 221.

“Hey, Jun, are you—oh my God.”

Junhee tugs on his fake beard and adjusts the pillow nestled under his red coat. “Ho, ho, ho! You’re early. Would you like a complimentary, definitely-not-stale candy cane?”

“You’ve done it. You’ve cracked. This is too much. Far too much.”

“Excuse _you_ , but you can never have too much holiday spirit,” Junhee huffs.

“You look like an extra in a shitty Hallmark movie, so yeah, I think you can. How many layers are you wearing?”

“Not important. Are you gonna take one or not?” Junhee holds out his bucket of candy canes and shakes it.

Sehyoon sighs and chooses one of the few unbroken ones. “I don’t know how I put up with you.” He removes the cellophane and sticks the straight end in his mouth.

“I mean—”

_Click._

Junhee turns around. “Would you like a free candy cane? Ho, ho, ho!”

“There’s no need to call me names, even if those names are true,” Byeongkwan says, raising an eyebrow. “Why does that bucket have a price tag from seven years ago?”

“...Because these candy canes were bought seven years ago,” Junhee answers.

Sehyoon slowly takes the candy cane out of his mouth, thoughtfully stares at it for a few seconds, and puts it back in. “Not that bad, honestly.”

“See? Sehyoon thinks they’re okay.”

“Hmph.”

Junhee puts the bucket down and picks up his phone from a desk. “There should be around thirty-one students on their way, so feel free to—oh no. Ohhh _no. Oh no.”_

“What’s wrong?” Sehyoon asks.

“Chan told me to check the school site. His... _His post got deleted._ ” Junhee’s eyes widen. “The meeting’s gonna happen in nine minutes. In here.”

“In here?”

“Room two-twenty-one. _Here_.”

“Guess your fun flurry of an exchange just turned into a shitstorm.” Byeongkwan drops his backpack and takes Sehyoon’s candy cane. He gives it a tentative lick and pulls a face before handing it back. “And your candy canes are the angry storm clouds.”

“Thank you for your commentary. That’s exactly what I needed to hear in a time of crisis,” Junhee responds. He makes a slight gagging motion when Sehyoon nonchalantly resumes sucking on his (and Byeongkwan’s?) candy cane. “Come on, we’ve got thirty-four students total and five minutes to distribute gifts. That leaves”—he pauses to think—“less than ten seconds for each exchange. We’re screwed.”

“Less than ten seconds for each exchange if you do it one by one,” Sehyoon says. 

“Huh?”

“There’s less than ten seconds for each exchange if you do it one by one, with each receiver turning into a giver.”

Byeongkwan catches on. “But if you made it a free-for-all, it would go faster. Each person could go and seek out whoever they got themselves.”

“It’s like drawing different segments of a circle at the same time instead of drawing it continuously,” Sehyoon adds.

“That’s… That’s a good idea, actually. Wow. That could work.”

“Well, we wouldn’t suggest it if it couldn’t. Good thinking, Yoonie,” Byeongkwan says, holding his hand up.

Sehyoon takes it and laces their fingers together. “Thanks.”

“I was going for a high five.”

Sehyoon smiles. “I know.”

Three minutes later, students start trickling into room 221, and a minute after that, all thirty-four students are there.

“Many of you know me as one of the most organized student body vice presidents this school has ever seen,” Junhee begins. “Today, I’m going back on that. Due to a scheduling conflict, we have less than five minutes to get this year’s Secret Santa exchange over with. No time for pleasantries, folks. As soon as you’ve received a gift and given your gift, _leave_. If you have no clue who your person looks like, please ask me for assistance. Ready, set, go!”

After some awkward shuffling, the exchange starts.

An underclassman, whom Sehyoon recognizes as one of Eunsuh’s friends, walks up to Sehyoon, wordlessly hands him a neatly-wrapped rectangular package, and dashes back to her fellow sophomores before he can say “thank you.” He doesn’t need to tear it open to know it’s a sketchbook, just as he requested.

Across the room, Byeongkwan fishes a small gift bag out of his backpack and gives it to a guy in their grade. He then spots Sehyoon and heads towards him.

“You’re my Secret Santa, right?”

Sehyoon’s eyebrows shoot up. “How’d you know?”

“Word gets around,” Byeongkwan says, shrugging. “And by that I mean I overheard you talking to Grandpa Dong a week ago.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t hear anything about specific presents, though, so don’t worry—that’s still a surprise.”

“Well, uh… Would you like to go somewhere else? I have a lot of presents, and, um… Look, we haven’t been alone without being interrupted in a little while, and I… I want that. I mean, I would like that,” Sehyoon says, holding out his hand.

Byeongkwan takes it and slings his backpack onto his shoulder. “Lead the way.”

Sehyoon nudges past the other students, opens the door, and drags him down the hallway, smiling all the while. As they draw closer to the forgotten stairwell, it dawns upon him how natural everything feels—his thumb curled around Byeongkwan’s, his fingertips resting between his knuckles, their palms pressed together. It makes him feel lightheaded in the best way, makes him heat up and simmer and _burn_. And he finds he doesn’t want to let go when they reach the stairwell. A small, irrational part of his brain tells him to warm his hands on this ravenous bonfire of a person forever. However, a larger, less irrational part tells him he should stop stoking this fire before it devours him.

Sehyoon lets go.

Byeongkwan pushes the door open, sits on the top step, and motions for Sehyoon to sit next to him. “So, what’d you get me?”

Sehyoon sits and places his bag of presents between them. “I was a little confused by your wishlist, but I hope I got what you wanted,” he says, pulling his first present out of the bag—a bouquet of pink camellias.

Byeongkwan stares at the bouquet, eyes wide. “Longing.”

“What?”

“In flower language, these represent longing, usually for a person.”

Sehyoon tenses up as he looks him in the eyes.

Suddenly, Byeongkwan—the same Byeongkwan who talks too much, too quickly, too easily—is silent. It takes a while for him to find the right words, and even then, he has trouble getting them out. 

“Are…? Are you…?”

Silence.

He tries again. “‘Cause if you are, I… I’m… ”

More silence.

Only then does Sehyoon figure out what he’s trying to ask. “What? No, um, I didn’t mean that, I don’t mean that—I didn’t know. Sorry. I just thought they were pretty. I can, uh—well, I don’t think I can return them, but I have other gifts. Sorry, again.” His grip on the bouquet loosens and it falls onto his lap.

“No, it’s alright, I… I like them.” Byeongkwan takes the bouquet. “You’re right—they’re pretty.”

“Not as pretty as you, though.”

Byeongkwan grins and flushes the same shade of pink as his camellias. “Not as pretty as me?”

“Nope. Not even close.” Sehyoon reaches into his bag and pulls out another present. “This one isn’t as pretty as the flowers, but I still think it looks nice. I hope it doesn’t have any hidden meaning.”

“Um.”

“What, does it mean something rude?”

“No, it’s… Yoon, what kind of plant do you think this is?”

“Uh, it’s potted and green and leafy, so some kind of bush, I’m guessing.”

“Sehyoon, this is a head of cabbage.” He bursts into his special kind of bell-like laughter. _“You got me a head of cabbage.”_

Sehyoon pulls up the collar of his sweater past his eyes and over his head. “It’s… I thought… God, I’m an idiot,” he mutters, his voice muffled.

“You’re lucky I’m into idiots, then. Not _like that,_ but… you know,” Byeongkwan says, tugging at his sweater.

Sehyoon _doesn’t_ know, actually, but he keeps his silence on the matter.

Byeongkwan grins when he lowers his collar enough to look him in the eyes. “I said I wouldn’t mind receiving head for Christmas, but this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

Sehyoon yanks his sweater back up and lets out a squeak, prompting Byeongkwan to laugh harder.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding.” He wraps his arms around him, and Sehyoon might be imagining things, but he swears he brushes his lips against his forehead. “It’s a great gift. I’m sure I’ll make use of it somehow. And stop covering your face—you’re too pretty to hide it with your sweater.” He removes Sehyoon’s hands from his collar and tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. “There. I’m a much better view than a sheet of fabric, aren’t I?”

“I guess,” Sehyoon says, smiling.

_“You guess.”_

He laughs when Byeongkwan playfully swats him and rummages through his bag yet again. “Alright, you’re gonna love this one. There’s no way you won’t.” He sets a box on his lap and opens it. “This brand’s great. A little expensive, but worth it. Try one.”

Byeongkwan looks down at the plastic tray of chocolate-covered cherries. “I can’t.”

“Hey, it’s not like I can return these.”

“That’s—That’s not—I can’t. I don’t have my EpiPen with me.”

“Your EpiPen?”

Byeongkwan picks up one of the sweets and inspects it. “Are these real cherries?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“I’m allergic.”

“Aller—You’re allergic?” Sehyoon sputters. “How? Your chapstick, and, and—your sneakers!” It takes a moment for him to realize one can be allergic to cherries and still wear cherry-printed high-top Converse®, and judging by the look on his face, Byeongkwan has also noticed his logical fallacy. However, Sehyoon continues. “Do you have to inject yourself every time you apply chapstick?”

“I’m fine with artificial flavoring, but the real things give me hives.” Byeongkwan shrugs. “It’s some chemical I can’t pronounce. Sorry, I should’ve mentioned this sooner.”

“It’s fine. It’s not your fault.” He sighs as Byeongkwan drops the chocolate-covered cherry back into its slot and shuts the box. “I guess I’m super unlucky when it comes to these kinds of things. I… I don’t think I should give you your last gift. It’s probably the worst out of all of them.”

“Can’t be worse than an accidental murder attempt.”

“You’re not _that_ allergic, are you?”

Byeongkwan slowly starts prying the lid off. “Wanna find out?”

 _“No.”_ Sehyoon pushes the lid back down. “Are you crazy?”

“You gave me a head of cabbage for Christmas. You don’t get to ask me that question.”

Sehyoon plays with a loose thread hanging from the sleeve of his sweater. “Now I _really_ don’t want to give you your last gift.”

“Then I’ll get it myself. I wanna see if our gift exchange is equal.”

“Equal? You don’t mean—”

“I may or may not have gotten you a gift or two,” Byeongkwan says, shaking his backpack. “But let’s leave that off for now. Come on, what’s your so-called ‘worst gift of them all?’” He grabs the bag and tries to empty it.

“Hey, hey, be careful! You might hurt yourself.” Sehyoon takes the bag from him and carefully takes a smaller gift bag out of it. “Before you say anything, it wasn’t my idea—the lady at the flower shop told me you’d like it.” He pulls the ends of his sleeves over his hands and removes the plant.

Byeongkwan blinks. “Oh.”

“You hate it, don’t you? I know, I shouldn’t have listened to her, I should’ve—”

“I love you.”

_“What?”_

“I meant ‘it!’” He corrects himself. “The, um, the cactus. Not you. The cactus. I love the cactus.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It… It reminds me of you a little bit. The spines ward most people off, but it’s cute. Fuzzy-looking. Unique. Can withstand almost anything—even me.” He mumbles the last part. “I’m gonna do my best to take care of it. I’ll put it on my window sill and give it the love it needs.”

Sehyoon smiles as he pulls the drawstring on his bag. “So, did I get you the sweet plants you wanted?”

“The what?”

“Sweet plants. You wrote ‘sweet plants’ on your tab.”

“Uh… I wrote ‘sweatpants’ on my tab.”

“You… Well.”

“Well.”

_“Well.”_

Byeongkwan shakes his head and grins. “In all honesty, I prefer everything you bought me over a boring pair of sweatpants. These are the best gifts I’ve ever received.”

“You don’t have to lie to make me feel better about being stupid.”

“I’m not lying. I love them.”

“You have a strange taste in gifts, then.”

“More like a strange taste in gift-givers.” Byeongkwan unzips his backpack and hands him a tiny box. “Here’s your first present.”

“You mean there’s more than one?”

“Only two,” Byeongkwan says, shrugging. “Open it—it’s something you really need.”

“Something I really need..?” Sehyoon carefully tears the wrapping paper and opens the box to reveal a pack of chapstick. 

“Yeah.” Byeongkwan’s face reddens. “Since you always lick your lips and… never mind.” He blinks rapidly and shakes his head as if he’s trying to clear his mind.

Sehyoon raises an eyebrow. “I do?” 

“You… Wait, you haven’t noticed? How have you not noticed?”

“How have _you_ noticed?” Sehyoon shoots back.

“I—I mean—I wasn’t staring at you or anything!” Byeongkwan’s face turns even redder. “We’re friends. Friends notice each other’s habits. It’s… It’s difficult to ignore it when you’re doing _this_ every five seconds.” He puts on his most lewd expression and slowly drags his tongue from one corner of his mouth to the other.

“I don’t do—I don’t do whatever you just did,” Sehyoon says, mortified and slightly aroused. “You have to be exaggerating.”

“You wouldn’t know.”

“Hm. Should I try to do it less?”

“Considering that you’re doing it right now, that would be a lost cause.”

Sehyoon pauses and stops licking his lips.

“It’s not the worst habit, you know. You don’t have to stop.”

“Should I do it more often, then?” he asks, wiggling his eyebrows.

Byeongkwan shakes his head harder. “Absolutely _not._ You’re already distracting when you do it on accident.”

“Dis—?”

“Okay, second present,” Byeongkwan interrupts. “I didn’t have time to wrap it, so close your eyes and I’ll tell you when to open them.”

Sehyoon does as he’s told and waits for him to pull his gift out of his backpack. He raises his eyebrows when he feels him put something on his lap. “A sketchbook?”

“Kind of. Open your eyes.”

Sehyoon’s eyes flutter open and he sees Byeongkwan staring back at him, expectant and pleased and with teeth on display. Perfect and pearly and _beautiful._

“Whatever’s on my lap right now can’t be a better gift than you.”

Byeongkwan’s grin stretches wider as he rolls his eyes. “Sure thing, Mariah. I don’t think you’ll be saying that after you look down, though.”

“I’m serious, there’s— _No way.”_ Sehyoon freezes. _“No. Way.”_

“Merry Christmas, Yoon.”

“I… I can’t… How much did this cost?” he asks, holding up the art tablet. “How did you— _Why_ did you— _Ahhh._ You’re insane. You’re completely insane.”

Byeongkwan laughs. “I’m guessing that you like your present.”

“I do. A lot. More than you could ever know.” Sehyoon sets the tablet aside, throws his arms around his shoulders, and buries his head in the crook of his neck. “You’re incredible. Don’t you ever forget that.”

“No need to get sappy.” Byeongkwan pats his back and gently pushes him away. “It’s not like I paid for all of it myself. You chipped in, remember?”

“I did?” Sehyoon cocks his head to the side.

“I forgot to tell my parents I was getting an art tablet for Seonkwan, and they ended up buying him a better one. That was one hell of a birthday dinner.” Byeongkwan crosses his arms and brings his knees up, his body curling up as he softly laughs. “I considered returning the extra one, but I thought you might want it.”

Sehyoon skims his fingertips across the tablet’s screen as if he’s making sure it’s not a mirage. “You thought correctly.” He draws his hand towards himself and rests it on his knee. “Don’t get me wrong—this is the best gift anyone could ever hope to receive. But there’s this one thing I’ve always wanted, if you’ll give it to me.”

Before he can stop to consider what he’s doing, he starts leaning in, his head slightly tilted. And to his surprise, Byeongkwan’s eyes flutter shut. It feels as if some unbearable weight has been lifted from him, as if someone hacked the universe’s code and made gravity optional. After months of getting their stars and wires crossed, it’s finally happening. Just mere seconds until they—

_Bzz. Bzzz._

Byeongkwan opens his eyes and scoots away. “Uh, I think that one’s yours.” He suddenly becomes very interested in a nearby dust bunny.

Sehyoon blinks, taken aback by his shift in demeanor. Did he imagine it? Did he imagine the tension? This… This half-experience, this evolution from _maybe_ into _almost_ into _so close_ followed by extinction… It only happened a moment ago, but he starts to doubt if there was even a _maybe_ to begin with. Surely, if there really was something between them, Byeongkwan wouldn’t react like this. Surely, it would mean something to him. Surely, he wouldn’t let this moment go so easily.

Sehyoon reluctantly checks his phone.

**living proof that redheads are demon spawn**

**Today** 3:17 PM

_HEYYYYY_

_GUESS WHAT’S HAPPENING FOR THE FIRST TIME_

_EVER_

_I’M AHEAD OF EVERYONE ELSE_

_MINGYU’S ONLY GOT 552 >:D _

_thanks 4 being a simp_

_You’re welcome_

_(???)_

“It looks like Chan’s in the lead for the Instagram contest.” Sehyoon shows Byeongkwan his phone.

“Oh, nice,” he says, his voice weirdly hollow. 

“I’m looking at the post’s comments, and uh—it looks like people think we’re together. Like that.” Sehyoon stops scrolling through the sea of _wait are they a thing_ s and _I knew it_ s and _not surprised_ s and waits for him to respond.

“Of course they do.”

This reply isn’t hollow; it’s more hurt, than anything. It makes Sehyoon aware of the stairwell’s lack of proper heating, and he feels a sour aftertaste on his tongue, not unlike that of cherries picked from the wrong side of the tree. And this doesn’t quite make sense, as he hasn’t eaten any cherries in a while; then it strikes him that it _could_ make sense, because if it weren’t for this interruption, he would indeed have the flavor of cherries on his tongue—maybe not the real kind, but the artificial kind coating Byeongkwan’s lips. He might be imagining it, but he swears the sourness becomes stronger.

“I should go.”

Byeongkwan gets up, puts on his backpack, and balances the cactus, the flowers, and the potted cabbage on top of the box of chocolate-covered cherries. Before Sehyoon can get up to open the door for him, he nudges it open with his shoulder and starts heading down the hallway.

Sehyoon slips his presents into his backpack and trails after him. “Hey, wait up!”

As he follows him through the school, he notices they’re drawing closer and closer to room 220—the room with the mistletoe. When they reach it, the door is wide open; the robotics club meeting must’ve ended early.

Sehyoon tugs on one of the zippers on Byeongkwan’s backpack and he stops and turns around.

“What?”

Sehyoon wordlessly gestures to the doorway, his face pink and his eyes downcast. He can’t bring himself to say it out loud.

Byeongkwan bites his lip as he glances at the ribbon-bound plant, and for a second, he looks as if he’s actually considering it, as if he’s ready to put his gifts down and drag him to the doorway himself, as if he’s willing to throw all caution to the wind and _go somewhere_ with him.

Instead, he continues walking. “I made plans, and I’m running late. Sorry, but I… I have to leave.”

As Sehyoon watches him turn into the next hallway, he realizes this is the price of stoking the fire; this is the result of feeding himself into the flames—

Getting scorched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> by the way, all future chapters will have a new cover :D
> 
> aight I hope y'all have a great day
> 
> (I'm all out of prewritten chapters so I'll probably be on hiatus again, sorry)

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter: @garbage_OwO](https://twitter.com/garbage_OwO)   
>  [tumblr: garbage-owo](https://garbage-owo.tumblr.com)


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